He looked at me for a moment with an expression of the deepest grief, and then said quietly, "Jack is dead."
"Dead?" I almost shouted. "Jack dead! You can't mean it!"
But he only repeated sadly, "Jack is dead," and walked on.
It seemed incredible; Jack, whom we had seen a few weeks before so full of life and vigour, Jack, who had ridden with us, played tennis, and been the leading spirit at our rat hunts, it was too horrible to think of!
I felt quite stunned, but the sight of the poor old man who had lost his only child roused me.
"I am more sorry than I can say," I ventured; "it must be a terrible blow to you."
"Thank you," he said; "you, who knew him well, can realise it more than any one; but it was all for the best—I felt that when I did it."
"Did what?" I inquired, thinking that he was straying from the point.
"When I shot him through the head," he replied laconically, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
If he had suddenly pointed a pistol at my head I could not have been more astonished; I was absolutely petrified with horror, for the thought flashed into my brain that Jack's father must be mad!