He broke the cover and spread the paper out before him. It was a copy of the Daily Telegraph, dated that day.
On the front page a place was marked. It was in the column devoted to births, marriages, and deaths. The mark was against an item among the deaths.
With a shudder and a sick feeling of sinking, he read:
"On the 28th inst., at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis Mellor (née Ray), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex."
He raised his head slowly from the table, threw himself into a chair, and burst into a passion of tears and sobs.
CHAPTER XVIII.
[PRIVATE THEATRICALS.]
While the owner of Boland's Ait was weeping over the brief announcement of his wife's death in the newspaper, the owner of a house in Singleton Terrace, Richmond, was sitting in his wife's drawing-room in a comfortable easy-chair, reading a novel. Mrs. Crawford, in her invalid's wheeled chair, sat at the other side of the table, languidly looking over a newspaper.
Mr. Crawford was a model of domestic virtue. He spent most of his time in the house, and the greater part of the hours he was at home were passed in the society of his wife. He did not drink, or smoke, or swear, or indulge in any other vice--in Richmond. As to gambling, or anything worse, the good people of the town would as soon think of hearing the rector accused of such practices. He went to church once on Sunday regularly; but made not the least claim to piety, not to say anything of godliness. The few claims that charity or religion had made upon his purse had been responded to with alacrity and modest gifts; but the most censorious could not accuse him of ostentation.
In fact there was a complete absence of anything approaching ostentation in the man. He seemed to care nothing for society, except the society of his elderly ailing wife. The conduct of the man was inexpressibly meritorious. He afforded many estimable matrons with an exemplar of what a good husband ought to be.