“How could you be so cruel?” she said to Frank. “Oh, Herbert, perhaps it’s not true. . . . What’s to be done, Dr. Hurrell? Can’t you save him somehow?”
She sank into a chair and sobbed. The boy placed his hand on her shoulder gently.
“Don’t cry, dear. In my heart of hearts I knew, but I tried not to believe it. After all, it can’t be helped. I shall just have to go through with it like everyone else.”
“It seems so hard and meaningless,” she groaned. “It can’t be true.”
Herbert looked at her without answering, as though her anguish were a curious thing which excited in him no emotion. In a little while, with a sigh, Bella rose to her feet and dried her eyes.
“Come away, Herbert,” she said. “Let us go back to Mary.”
“D’you mind if I go by myself? I feel I can’t talk to anyone just now. I should like to be alone for a bit to think it out.”
“You must do as you choose, Herbert.”
“Good-bye, Dr. Hurrell, and thanks.”
With eager, pain-filled eyes Bella watched him go, and she, too, felt that something strange was in him, so that she dared not thwart his wish; when he spoke there was an inflexion in his voice which she had never heard before. But presently, with a great effort gathering herself together, she turned to Frank.