He had a telegram in his hand, and Thorpe, rousing himself
with an effort, took the liver-coloured envelope, and looked
blankly at it. Some weird apprehension seized upon him,
as if he belonged to the peasant class which instinctively
yokes telegrams and calamities together. He deferred
to this feeling enough to nod dismissal to the clerk,
and then, when he was again alone, slowly opened the message,
and read it:
"Newcastle-on-Tyne, September 12. Our friend died at Edinboro
this morning. See you at hotel this evening.--Kervick."
What Thorpe felt at first was that his two daughters
had shrunk from him with swift, terrible aversion:
they vanished, along with every phase of the bright vision,
under a pall of unearthly blackness. He stood in the centre
of a chill solitude, staring stupidly at the coarse,
soft paper.
The premonition, then, had justified itself! Something
had told him that the telegram was an evil thing.
A vaguely superstitious consciousness of being in the presence
of Fate laid hold upon him. His great day of triumph
had its blood-stain. A victim had been needful--and to
that end poor simple, silly old Tavender was a dead man.
Thorpe could see him,--an embarrassing cadaver eyed by
strangers who did not know what to do with it,--fatuous
even in death.
A sudden rage at Kervick flamed up.
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