"_Your Brother Died This Evening_.--SYMONDS."
"This evening" was yesterday. Mark had died yesterday.
Her heart stopped again. She had a sudden feeling of suffocation and
sickness.
Her mind left off following the sprawl of the thick grey-black letters on
the livid pink form.
It woke again to the extraordinary existence of Miss Horn's parlour. It
went back to Mark, slowly, by the way it had come, by the smell of the
lamp, by the orange envelope on the maroon cloth.
Mark. And something else.
Mamma--Mamma. She would have to know.
Miss Horn still faced her, supporting herself by her spread hands pressed
down on to the table. Her eyes had a look of gentle, helpless
interrogation, as if she said, "What are you going to do about it?"
She did all the necessary things; asked for a telegram form, filled it
in: "_Send Details_, MARY OLIVIER"; and addressed it to Symonds of "E"
Company. And all the time, while her hand moved over the paper, she was
thinking, "I shall have to tell Mamma."