He tore open the envelope.

‘Could you come at once?  Something has happened. —­ Abbott.’

The boy wished to know if there would be a reply.  Harvey shook his head, and stepped into the hall, where he stood reflecting.  What could have happened that Edgar Abbott should summon him?  Had his wife run away? —­ Ah, to be sure, it must have something to do with Wager’s children —­ an accident, a death.  But why send for him?

He made a little change in his dress, and drove forthwith to Kilburn.  As his cab stopped, he saw that all the blinds in the front of the Abbotts’ house were drawn down.  Death, then, obviously.  It was with a painful shaking of the nerves that he knocked for admission.

‘Mr. Abbott ——?’

The servant girl, who had a long-drawn face, said nothing, but left him where he stood, returning in a moment with a mumbled ’Will you please to come in, sir?’ He followed her to the room in which he had talked with Mrs. Abbott two days ago; and she it was who again received him.  Her back to the light, she stood motionless.

‘Your husband has telegraphed for me ——­’

A voice that struggled with a sob made thick reply ——­

‘No —­ I —­ he is dead!’

The accent of that last monosyllable was heart-piercing.  It seemed to Harvey as though the word were new-minted, so full it sounded of dreadful meaning.

‘Dead?’

Mrs. Abbott moved, and he could see her face better.  She must have wept for hours.

’He has been taking morphia —­ he couldn’t sleep well —­ and then his neuralgia.  The girl found him this morning, at seven o’clock —­ there.’

She pointed to the couch.

‘You mean that he had taken an overdose —­ by accident ——­’

’It must have been so.  He had to work late —­ and then be must have lain down to sleep.’

‘Why here?’

’A flood of anguish whelmed her.  She uttered a long moan, all the more terrible for its subdual to a sound that could not pass beyond the room.  Her struggle for self-command made her suffering only the more impressive, the more grievous to behold.’

’Mr. Rolfe, I sent for you because you are his old friend.  I meant to tell you all the truth, as I know it.  I can’t tell it before strangers —­ in public!  I can’t let them know —­ the shame —­ the shame!’

Harvey’s sympathy gave way to astonishment and strange surmise.  Hurriedly he besought her not to reveal anything in her present distress; to wait till she could reflect calmly, see things in truer proportion.  His embarrassment was heightened by an inability to identify this woman with the Mrs. Abbott he had known; the change in her self-presentment seemed as great and sudden as that in her circumstances.  Face and voice, though scarce recognisable, had changed less than the soul of her —­ as Harvey imaged it.  This entreaty she replied to with a steadiness, a resolve, which left him no choice but to listen.