She could not shed tears in that first awful moment: physically and mentally she leaned on him for support. "_How_ can we tell my mother?"
It was necessary that Mrs. Tait should be told, and without delay. Even then the body was being conveyed to the house. By a curious coincidence, Mr. Halliburton had been passing the last doctor's surgery at the very moment the crowd was round its doors. Unusual business had called him there; or it was a street he did not enter once in a year. "The parson has fallen down in a fit," said some of them, recognizing and arresting him.
"The parson!" he repeated. "What! Mr. Tait?"
"Sure enough," said they. And Mr. Halliburton pressed into the surgeon's house just as the examination was over.
"The heart, no doubt, sir," said the doctor to him.
"Quite dead. He must have died instantaneously."
The news had been wafted to the mob outside, and they were already taking a shutter from its hinges. "I will go on first and prepare the family," said Mr. Halliburton to them. "Give me a quarter of an hour's start, and then come on."
So that he had only a quarter of an hour for it all. His thoughts naturally turned to his wife: not simply to spare her alarm and pain, so far as he might, but he believed her, young as she was, to possess more calmness and self-control than Mrs. Tait. As he sped to the house he rehearsed his task; and might have accomplished it better but for his tell-tale face. "Jane," he whispered, "let this be your consolation ever: he was ready to go."
"Oh yes!" she answered, bursting into a storm of most distressing tears. "If any one here was ever fit for heaven, it was my dear father."
Some noise had arisen downstairs--a sound of voices speaking in undertones. There could be no doubt that people had come to the house with the news, and were imparting it to the two trembling servants.
How Jane dried her eyes and suppressed all temporary sign of grief and emotion, she could not tell. A sense of duty was strong within her, and she knew that the most imperative duty of the present moment was the support and solace of her mother. She and her husband entered the drawing-room together, and Mrs. Tait turned with a smile to Mr. Halliburton.
"What secrets have you and Jane been talking together?" Then, catching sight of Jane's white and quivering lips, she broke into a cry of agony. "Jane! what has happened? What have you both come to tell me?"