"You!" he began, low-voiced, ominous. "You!" He raised a great fist
high. "You two murderers! You didn't consider me, twenty years ago. You
come to me with talk like that. Where's my boy! You killed him, you two,
twenty years ago. And now he belongs to somebody else. Where's my son
that should have gone marching by to-day?" He flung his arms out in a
great gesture of longing. The red veins stood out on his forehead.
"Where's my son! Answer me that, you two selfish, miserable women.
Where's my son!" Then, as they huddled together, frightened, wild-eyed.
"Out of my house! Out of my house! Before I hurt you!"

They fled, terrified. The door banged behind them.

Jo stood, shaking, in the centre of the room. Then he reached for a
chair, gropingly, and sat down. He passed one moist, flabby hand over
his forehead and it came away wet. The telephone rang. He sat still. It
sounded far away and unimportant, like something forgotten. I think he
did not even hear it with his conscious ear. But it rang and rang
insistently. Jo liked to answer his telephone, when at home.

"Hello!" He knew instantly the voice at the other end.

"That you, Jo?" it said.

"Yes."

"How's my boy?"

"I'm--all right."