William picked it up and read it.
"Your mother found dead in bed. Send instructions re disposal of remains."
"They might have worded the message a little less brutally," William said at length.
"Officialism is nothing if not brutal," Ralph said bitterly.
Then the two men looked at each other in silence. William had little difficulty in guessing what was passing through Ralph's mind.
"If I were in his place," he reflected, "what should I be thinking? Should I like my mother to be put into a parish coffin and buried in a pauper's grave?"
William spoke at length.
"You'd like your mother and father to sleep together?" he questioned.
Ralph's lips trembled, but he did not speak.
"The world's been terribly rough on you," William went on, "but you'll come into your own maybe by and by."