All the little household had gathered in before Lucy came. They had the fire blazing, and the tea set for her return. They could not lighten the falling blow, but they could surround her with loving kindliness.
Lucy heard the news very quietly indeed. She lifted Hugh upon her knee and kissed him two or three times. Then she said she was afraid they would all take cold through wandering about in such disagreeable weather. She put Hugh down, rose, and went out of the room, leading him by the hand.
Mrs. Grant shook her head. “If our husbands are really gone,” she said, “she won’t stay long after them.”
“Oh, yes, she will,” asserted Miss Latimer; “the source of all strength is open to my Lucy, and she will be found ready to do the next thing.”
“I know there’s a great deal in that,” Mrs. Grant admitted. “Grief does not kill according to the greatness of itself, or of the love behind it, only according to the weakness of the constitution; but she looks little more than a spirit already.”
A postman’s knock came to the door. Tom ran to see what had arrived. He did not come straightway back to the parlour, and when he did, he threw Miss Latimer a significant glance.
“I think I’d better run round to the office,” he said, “and let them know what we have heard. And I think I’ll look in also on Mr. Somerset. I’ll be back in good time to see Mrs. Grant to the station, as she is quite determined to go to-night.”
By the time Tom reached the office, his principals had departed. Tom did not choose to tell his melancholy news to any of the underlings; but he was only too anxious to disburden himself to Mr. Somerset.
That gentleman was deeply moved by the tidings of the Slains Castle—so ominous of the true significance of the long silence. Yet he allowed himself to see that there might be some force in Mrs. Grant’s arguments, when Tom repeated them to him.
But Tom had more news. He had to show Mr. Somerset what had arrived by post only the minute before he started to visit him—what indeed had been the controlling cause of that visit.