Leonard started.
“My grandfather committed suicide? What do you mean? My grandfather died somewhere about 1860. What do you mean by saying that he killed himself?”
“What! Don’t you know? Your grandfather, sir,” said the other firmly, “died of cut-throat fever. Oh yes, whatever they called it, he died of cut-throat fever. Very sudden it was. Of that I am quite certain, because my grandmother remembers the business perfectly well.”
“Is it possible? Killed himself? Then, why did I never learn such a thing?”
“I suppose they didn’t wish to worry you. Your father was but a child, I suppose, at the time. Perhaps they never told him. All the same, it’s perfectly true.”
Committed suicide! He remembered the widow who never smiled—the pale-faced, heavy-eyed widow. He now understood why she went in mourning all the days of her life. He now learned in this unexpected manner, why she had retired to the quiet little Cornish village.
Committed suicide! Why? It seemed a kind of sacrilege to ask this person. He hesitated; he took up a trifling ornament from the mantelshelf, and played with it. It dropped out of his fingers into the fender, and was broken.
“Pray,” he asked, leaving the other question for the moment, “how came your grandmother to be separated from her own people?”
“They went away into the country. And her father went silly. She never knew him when he wasn’t silly. He went silly when his brother-in-law was murdered.”
“Brother-in-law murdered? Murdered! What is this? Good Lord, man! what do you mean with your murder and your suicide?”