Chapter Twenty Nine.
Uncle Rik’s Adventures.
Uncle Rik seated in Mr Wright’s drawing-room; Mr Wright in an easy-chair near the window; Mrs Wright—with much of the lustre gone out of her fine eyes—lying languidly on the sofa; Madge Mayland at work on some incomprehensible piece of netting beside her aunt,—all in deep mourning.
Uncle Rik has just opened a telegram, at which he stares, open eyed and mouthed, without speaking, while his ruddy cheeks grow pale.
“Not bad news, I trust, brother,” said poor Mrs Wright, to whom the worst news had been conveyed when she heard of the wreck of the Triton. Nothing could exceed that, she felt, in bitterness.
“What is it, Rik?” said Mr Wright, anxiously.
“Oh! nothing—nothing. That is to say, not bad news, certainly, but amazing news. Boh! I’m a fool.”
He stopped short after this complimentary assertion, for uncle Rik had somewhere read or heard that joy can kill, and he feared to become an accomplice in a murder.