“You must stay here, Charles,” said Harrington, turning to Tugmutton. “On no account must you go to your father after what has happened, until we decide what to do.”
Tugmutton said nothing, but sat down on a low stool in a corner of the room, and leaned against the wall in deep despondency.
“And what are we to do, Muriel?” murmured Harrington. “How are we to tell Roux of this? It will kill him. Even now, perhaps he is wondering where his brother is. Poor, poor man! Oh, misery, misery!”
He turned away and walked the dim library with an aching heart. Muriel, silent, her mind in its fullest activity, was vainly striving to think of some plan by which this sad stroke of fortune could be retrieved. Presently, Harrington rang for lights, and Patrick came in and lighted the chandelier, whose moony globes of ground glass filled the library with mellow radiance.
Alone again, Harrington turned to Muriel; she rose from her seat, and gliding swiftly toward him, clasped him in her arms. Holding her to him, he gazed, sadly smiling, into her face, exquisite in its pale beauty.
“Beloved,” he murmured mournfully, “it is the first sorrow of our wedded life.”
“The first,” she calmly answered. “But, oh, my husband, let us be grateful that it is a sorrow that we feel for others, and not for ourselves.”
The tears ran down his face, and he fondly bent his head and pressed his lips to her forehead.
“We were so happy,” he faltered. “Never was my spirit lulled in so deep and sweet a happiness as when this dreadful tidings rushed upon me. Strange, strange to think this heavenly day should end thus, in this blackness of darkness. It quite unmans me.”
Folded in each other’s arms, they remained for a little while in silence, while his agitation gradually subsided into sorrowful calm.