She was in a state of great agitation, and had evidently been crying very much.

“Oh, Mr. Benson!” said she, “will you come with me, and tell papa this sad news about Dick?  Walter has written me a letter at last, to say he has found him—­he could not at first; but now it seems that, the day before yesterday, he heard of an accident which had happened to the Dover coach; it was overturned—­two passengers killed, and several badly hurt.  Walter says we ought to be thankful, as he is, that Dick was not killed.  He says it was such a relief to him on going to the place—­the little inn nearest to where the coach was overturned—­to find that Dick was only severely injured; not one of those who was killed.  But it is a terrible shock to us all.  We had had no more dreadful fear to lessen the shock; mamma is quite unfit for anything, and we none of us dare to tell papa.”  Jemima had hard work to keep down her sobs thus far, and now they overmastered her.

“How is your father?  I have wanted to hear every day,” asked Mr. Benson tenderly.

“It was careless of me not to come and tell you; but, indeed, I have had so much to do.  Mamma would not go near him.  He has said something which she seems as if she could not forgive.  Because he came to meals, she would not.  She has almost lived in the nursery; taking out all Dick’s old playthings, and what clothes of his were left, and turning them over, and crying over them.”

“Then Mr. Bradshaw has joined you again; I was afraid, from what Mr. Farquhar said, he was going to isolate himself from you all?”

“I wish he had,” said Jemima, crying afresh.  “It would have been more natural than the way he has gone on; the only difference from his usual habit is, that he has never gone near the office, or else he has come to meals just as usual, and talked just as usual; and even done what I never knew him do before, tried to make jokes—­all in order to show us how little he cares.”

“Does he not go out at all?”

“Only in the garden.  I am sure he does care after all; he must care; he cannot shake off a child in this way, though he thinks he can; and that makes me so afraid of telling him of this accident.  Will you come, Mr. Benson?”

He needed no other word.  He went with her, as she rapidly threaded her way through the by-streets.  When they reached the house, she went in without knocking, and, putting her husband’s letter into Mr. Benson’s hand, she opened the door of her father’s room, and saying—­“Papa, here is Mr. Benson,” left them alone.

Mr. Benson felt nervously incapable of knowing what to do, or to say.  He had surprised Mr. Bradshaw sitting idly over the fire—­gazing dreamily into the embers.  But he had started up, and drawn his chair to the table, on seeing his visitor; and, after the first necessary words of politeness were over, he seemed to expect him to open the conversation.

“Mrs. Farquhar has asked me,” said Mr. Benson, plunging into the subject with a trembling heart, “to tell you about a letter she has received from her husband;” he stopped for an instant, for he felt that he did not get nearer the real difficulty, and yet could not tell the best way of approaching it.