XXXIV.
“Well, old fellow, I’ve got some good news for you,” said Mr. Brandreth, when Ray showed himself at the door of the publisher’s little den the next morning. Ray thought that he carried the record of the event he had witnessed in every lineament, but Mr. Brandreth could have seen nothing unusual in his face. “The editor of Every Evening has just been here, and he wants to see you about taking hold of his literary department.” Ray stared blankly. Mr. Brandreth went on with generous pleasure: “He’s had some trouble with the man who’s been doing it, and it’s come to a complete break at last, and now he wants you to try. He’s got some new ideas about it. He wants to make something specially literary of the Saturday issue; he has a notion of restoring the old-fashioned serial. If you take charge, you could work in the Modern Romeo on him; and then, if it succeeds as a serial, we can republish it in book form! Better see him at once! Isn’t it funny how things turn out? He said he was coming down town in a Broadway car, and happened to catch sight of Coquelin’s name on a poster at the theatre, and it made him think of you. He’d always liked that thing you did for him, and when he got down here, he jumped out and came in to ask about you. I talked you into him good and strong, and he wants to see you.”
Ray listened in nerveless passivity to news that would have transported him with hope a few hours before. Mr. Brandreth might well have mistaken his absent stare for the effect of such a rapture. He said, as a man does when tempted a little beyond prudence by the pleasure he is giving:
“The fact is, I’ve been thinking about that work of yours, myself. I want to try some novel for the summer trade; and I want you to let me see it again. I want to read it myself this time. They say a publisher oughtn’t to know anything about the inside of a book, but I think we might make an exception of yours.” Ray’s face remained unchanged, and Mr. Brandreth now asked, with a sudden perception of its strangeness: “Hello! What’s the matter? Anything gone wrong with you?”
“No, no,” Ray struggled out, “not with me. But”—
“Nothing new with the Hugheses, I hope?” said Mr. Brandreth, with mounting alarm. “Miss Hughes was to have come back to work this morning, but she hasn’t yet. No more diphtheria, I hope? By Jove, my dear fellow, I don’t think you ought to come here if there is! I don’t think it’s quite fair to me.”
“It isn’t diphtheria,” Ray gasped. “But they’re in great trouble. I hardly know how to tell you. That wretched creature, Denton, has killed himself. He’s been off his base for some time, and I’ve been dreading—I’ve been there all night with them. He took prussic acid and died instantly. Mr. Hughes and I had a struggle with him to prevent—prevent him; and the old man got a wrench, and then he had a hemorrhage. He is very weak from it, but the doctor’s brought him round for the present. Miss Hughes wanted me to come and tell you.”
“Has it got out yet?” Mr. Brandreth asked. “Are the reporters on to it?”
“The fact has to come out officially through the doctor, but it isn’t known yet.”
“I wish it hadn’t happened,” said Mr. Brandreth. “It will be an awful scandal.”