Nathaniel's. "Well, the ides of June
have come, Sister Wade!" I said, when I met her, parodying Caesar.
"But not yet gone," she answered; and a profound sense of foreboding
spread over her speaking face as she uttered the words.
Her oracle disquieted me. "Why, I dined there last night," I cried; "and
all seemed exceptionally well."
"The calm before the storm, perhaps," she murmured.
Just at that moment I heard a boy crying in the street: "Pall mall
Gazette; 'ere y'are; speshul edishun! Shocking tragedy at the West-end!
Orful murder! 'Ere y'are! Spechul Globe! Pall Mall, extry speshul!"
A weird tremor broke over me. I walked down into the street and bought
a paper. There it stared me in the face on the middle page: "Tragedy
at Campden Hill: Well-known Barrister Murders his Wife. Sensational
Details."
I looked closer and read. It was as I feared. The Le Geyts! After I left
their house, the night before, husband and wife must have quarrelled,
no doubt over the question of the children's schooling; and at some
provoking word, as it seemed, Hugo must have snatched up a knife--"a
little ornamental Norwegian dagger," the report said, "which happened
to lie close by on the cabinet in the drawing-room," and plunged it
into his wife's heart.
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