“Look here, Jennie,” he said excitedly, “Brander’s dead!”
He held up the newspaper, on the first column of Which was printed in heavy block type:
DEATH OF EX-SENATOR BRANDER
Sudden Passing of Ohio’s Distinguished Son. Succumbs to Heart Failure at the Arlington, in Washington.
Recent attack of typhoid, from which he was thought to be recovering, proves fatal. Notable phases of a remarkable career.
Jennie looked at it in blank amazement. “Dead?” she exclaimed.
“There it is in the paper,” returned Bass, his tone being that of one who is imparting a very interesting piece of news. “He died at ten o’clock this morning.”
CHAPTER IX
Jennie took the paper with but ill-concealed trembling and went into the adjoining room. There she stood by the front window and looked at it again, a sickening sensation of dread holding her as though in a trance.
“He is dead,” was all that her mind could formulate for the time, and as she stood there the voice of Bass recounting the fact to Gerhardt in the adjoining room sounded in her ears. “Yes, he is dead,” she heard him say; and once again she tried to get some conception of what it meant to her. But her mind seemed a blank.
A moment later Mrs. Gerhardt joined her. She had heard Bass’s announcement and had seen Jennie leave the room, but her trouble with Gerhardt over the Senator had caused her to be careful of any display of emotion. No conception of the real state of affairs ever having crossed her mind, she was only interested in seeing how Jennie would take this sudden annihilation of her hopes.
“Isn’t it too bad?” she said, with real sorrow. “To think that he should have to die just when he was going to do so much for you—for us all.”