“Then he was gone; had he bounded away? had he flown? she could not have said, she could only remain pressed against the wall, the children crying, and her hands clasped over her heart.
“There, what do you think of that for the story of a Kentish farm-house? What a train of dynamite, isn’t it, laid in the arena of Cadiz? What a heritage to transmit even to the third generation! You don’t believe it? I thought you wouldn’t. But it is true.
“Ruth told me the whole of this amazing story in a low voice, playing all the while with her two faded roses. She showed me a lawyer’s letter which she had received next day, formalising the agreement about the farm, stipulating that she should pay rent; all couched in cold, business-like terms. ‘Our client, Rawdon Westmacott, Esq.,’ that savage, half-crazed, screaming creature that had smashed the flower-pots only a week before....
“‘I see you’ve replaced the geraniums,’ I said rather irrelevantly.
“‘Yes.’
“‘What about the mice?’
“‘They all died.’
“So that chapter was closed?
“‘At any rate, Ruth, you need not worry now about your children.’