After a pause it was he who spoke, in a quiet, unemotional voice which
aggravated while it cowed her.
"When did you hear this news?" he asked.
"Oh, last night. It was so late that I did not send down. I--it was so
sudden. I was terribly upset."
"M--yes."
"I telegraphed to Arthur first thing this morning," the mistress of
Stagholme went on eagerly, "and I was just going to write to you when you
came in."
With that nervous desire for corroborative evidence which arouses the
suspicion of the observant whenever it appears, Mrs. Agar indicated the
writing-table with open blotter and inkstand. Instantly, but too late,
she regretted having done so, for a volume playfully called "Every Man
his own Lawyer" lay confessed beside the writing-case, and its home on
the bookshelf stared vacantly at them.
"And from whom did you hear it?" pursued the Rector, heartlessly looking
at the book with an air of recognition.
"Oh, from a Mr. Johnson--at the War Office, or the India Office, or
somewhere.
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