“What d’you mean?” said Martin Dene, swinging round.
“Your mother’s dead, that’s what I mean.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, dead three months ago.”
“Dead! Mother dead? why? how?”
“Tell him, Nan.”
“Look here,” said Morgan, speaking for the first time, “I’m sorry you’ve got to learn this news....”
“Oh, smooth it over! water it down! I didn’t know you were there, Linnet,” interrupted Silas. “I’ll tell him myself. Your mother was killed in an accident—picked up unrecognisable—run over by a train—now you know. Got anything to say?”
“My God!” said young Dene, covering his face. Nan went up to him and began to whisper to him; he heard her half through with horribly staring gaze, but then, disregarding her, he cried in a hoarse voice to his father, “Accident be damned! you drove her to it. I know your ways—they drove me away to Canada, and Elsie to London—I’ve seen her there—and they drove mother to that—come, own up! it was suicide, wasn’t it?” He made a movement towards his father, but Nan clung to his arm.
“No, I swear it wasn’t,” replied Silas, full of a grim amusement at his suggestion.