words.

They were young, they were undisciplined, they were quite unused to
misfortune. The children met the news of its appearance among them by a
loud yell of terrified protest. Mrs. Day had flung herself upon him,
grasped him, clung to him.

"Not William! Not my husband! No! No! No!" she shrieked.

"I thought you knew! I thought you knew!" George Boult said. The woman
hurt him by her grip upon his arms; what a din was in his ears!

"Papa! Oh, papa! Papa!" Bessie screamed.

Franky was screaming too. He had got down from the table and rushed round
to his younger sister, who, white, and shaking like a leaf, took the child
in her arms. Bernard had risen, ashen-faced, staring. "It isn't true!" he
shouted savagely at his father's traducer. "It's a lie!"

"Didn't you know?" George Boult kept saying to the poor woman who was
shaking him by the force of her trembling as she clung to him. "I would
have prepared you--I thought you knew."

"I thought it was bankruptcy," she got out between her chattering teeth.
"I didn't know it was--disgrace. Are you sure? Quite sure?"

"Quite. There is not the shadow of a chance it is not true. A police
officer brought me a message from him from the station-house last night."

She let go his arms, and sank into her chair again; and Franky, who could