And with cruel abruptness he laid the newspaper on the table between the two women, and pointed out the fatal paragraph.

Then he stalked out of the room, and called his man-servant to help him on with his heavy overcoat.

That house, on the previous night, had been one blaze of light in honor of the State dinner.  Now, as well as he could see dimly through the falling snow, it was all closed up, and men on ladders were festooning every row of windows with black goods.

“Yes, of course.  It is as I expected.  The news has gone all over the town already,” said old Aaron Rockharrt, as he strode through the snowstorm to the business center of the city.

Every acquaintance whom he met stopped him with the same question in slightly different words.

“Have you heard?” and so forth.

Every intimate friend he encountered asked: 

“How does Mrs. Rothsay bear it?” or—­

“What on earth ever took the governor out there?”

To all questions the Iron King gave curt answers that discouraged discussion of the subject.  He walked on, noticing that the stores and offices of the city were being festooned with mourning, and that notwithstanding the severity of the storm the street corners were occupied by groups talking excitedly of the fatal news.

He went into the editorial rooms of all the city newspapers and wished and attempted to dictate to the proprietors the manner in which they should write of the tragic event which was then in the minds and on the tongues of all persons.

As he spent an hour on the average at each office, it was late in the winter afternoon when he got home.  It was not yet dark, however, and he was surprised to see a man servant engaged in closing the shutters.

He entered and demanded severely why the servant shut the windows before night.

The old man looked nervous and distressed, and answered vaguely: 

“It is the missus, sah.”

The idea that his wife should take the liberty of ordering the house to be closed for the night at this unusual hour of the afternoon, without his authority, enraged him: 

“Help me off with my ulster,” he said.

When the servant had performed this office the master said: 

“Serve dinner at once.”

And then he strode into the back parlor, which was the usual sitting room of his wife and granddaughter.  The room was empty and darkened.  More than ever infuriated by fatigue, hunger, and the supposed disregard of his authority, he came out and walked up stairs to look for his wife in her own room.  He pushed open the door and entered.  That room was also dark, only for the faint red light that came from the coal fire in the grate.  By this he dimly perceived a female form sitting near the bed, and whom he supposed to be his wife.

“Why, in the fiend’s name, is the whole house as dark as pitch?” he roughly demanded, as he went to a front window and threw open the shutters, letting in the white light of the snow storm.