She could go alone, and alone she went, with one consuming thought as she sped along.
"Oh, momma! Poor momma! This'll about finish her."
And yet when she entered the living-room her mother was sitting, calm and serene, while Mr. Brunt told the tale of the New Jersey marshes. Jennie, white, tearless, terrified, crept up to Gussie, and the two clung together as their mother said, in her steady voice.
"So I understand that only one of them is dead--the Irish one."
"I'm not surprised. I told him when he was here the other day that what he called 'law and order' would bring him to grief, as they bring most of us, though I didn't expect it to be so soon. And my son, you say, is in jail."
"And then they'll send him to the chair." Mr. Brunt didn't answer. "Oh, you needn't be afraid to speak of it. I know they will. I'm not sorry. Teddy will be sorry, of course--till it's over. But I'd rather he'd suffer a little now and be done with it than go through the hell of years his father and I have had. If there was going to be any chance for him, it would be different; but there's no chance, not the way the world is organized now."
"Where there's nothing but government by the strong for the strong, people like ourselves must go under. You'll go under, too, Mr. Brunt. You belong to the doomed class. The workingman will soon be getting share and share alike with the capitalist; and the white-collar crowd will be kicked about by both. If we had the pluck to fight as the workingman has fought, we might save something even now; but we haven't, and so there's no hope for us. Law and order have us by the throat, and we must suffer till they strangle us. Well, my boy will soon be out of it--thank God!--and all I ask is to follow him."
When Mr. Brunt got himself to the door, Jennie went with him, as she had done with Flynn and Jackman two days earlier. She did this in the dazed condition of a woman who performs some little act of courtesy during shipwreck, while waiting for the vessel to go down.
"You must excuse my mother, Mr. Brunt. Ever since my father died her mind's been unsettled, and we don't know what to make of her."
But Mr. Brunt's demeanor did not encourage conversation. To do him justice, the mission on which Collingham had sent him had been repugnant for other reasons than the breaking of bad news. His mind being of the cast Bickley had analyzed that morning, Teddy's theft filled him with more horror than his killing of a man. To come so near to crime against the ownership of bank notes inspired him with a physical loathing which even Jennie's loveliness couldn't mitigate. It was as if she herself was tainted by some horrible infection, making it a relief to him to get away from her.