‘But I told you it was not necessary—’ she began.
‘Yes, but the telegram,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I wanted to let you know first that—it is very serious. Paula—my father is dead! He died suddenly yesterday, and I must go at once... . About Charlotte—and how to let her know—’
‘She must not be told yet,’ said Paula.... ‘Sir William dead!’
‘You think we had better not tell her just yet?’ said De Stancy anxiously. ‘That’s what I want to consult you about, if you—don’t mind my intruding.’
‘Certainly I don’t,’ she said.
They continued the discussion for some time; and it was decided that Charlotte should not be informed of what had happened till the doctor had been consulted, Paula promising to account for her brother’s departure.
De Stancy then prepared to leave for England by the first morning train, and roused the night-porter, which functionary, having packed off Abner Power, was discovered asleep on the sofa of the landlord’s parlour. At half-past five Paula, who in the interim had been pensively sitting with her hand to her chin, quite forgetting that she had meant to go to bed, heard wheels without, and looked from the window. A fly had been brought round, and one of the hotel servants was in the act of putting up a portmanteau with De Stancy’s initials upon it. A minute afterwards the captain came to her door.
‘I thought you had not gone to bed, after all.’
‘I was anxious to see you off,’ said she, ‘since neither of the others is awake; and you wished me not to rouse them.’
‘Quite right, you are very good;’ and lowering his voice: ‘Paula, it is a sad and solemn time with me. Will you grant me one word—not on our last sad subject, but on the previous one—before I part with you to go and bury my father?’