CHAPTER XVI.
FORTITER IN RE.
When the lawyer had gone, for a while there was silence in Henry’s room. Everybody seemed to wish to speak, and yet no one could find any words to say. Of course Henry was aware that the subject which had been discussed at the last dreadful scene of his father’s life would be renewed on the first opportunity, but he was nervously anxious that it should not be now, when he did not feel able to cope with the bitter arguments which he was sure Ellen was preparing for him, and still less with the pleadings of his mother, should she condescend to plead. After all it was he who spoke the first.
“Perhaps, Ellen,” he said, “you will tell me who were present at our father’s funeral.”
“Everybody,” she answered; adding, with meaning, “You see, the truth about us has n
