d been happening there. As to
what this was, they were not quickly enlightened. Our old Greek friend,
after a run of twenty miles, would always reel off a round hundred of
graphic verses unimpeachable in scansion. Clarence was of degenerate
mould. He collapsed on to a chair, and sat there gasping; and his
recovery was rather delayed than hastened by his mother, who, in her
solicitude, patted him vigorously between the shoulders.

"Let him alone, mother, do," cried Katie, wringing her hands.

"The Duke, he's drowned himself," presently gasped the Messenger.

Blank verse, yes, so far as it went; but delivered without the slightest
regard for rhythm, and composed in stark defiance of those laws which
should regulate the breaking of bad news. You, please remember, were
carefully prepared by me against the shock of the Duke's death; and yet
I hear you still mumbling that I didn't let the actual fact be told you
by a Messenger. Come, do you really think your grievance against me
is for a moment comparable with that of Mrs. and Miss Batch against
Clarence? Did you feel faint at any moment in the foregoing chapter? No.
But Katie, at Clarence's first words, fainted outright. Think a little
more about this poor girl senseless on the floor, and a little less
about your own paltry discomfort.

Mrs. Batch herself did not faint, but she was too much overwhelmed to
notice that her daughter had done so.

"No! Mercy on us! Speak, boy, can't you?"

"The river," gasped Clarence. "Threw himself in. On purpose. I was on
the towing-path. Saw him do it."

Mrs. Batch gave a low moan.

"Katie's fainted," added the Messenger, not without a touch of personal
pride.

"Saw him do it," Mrs. Batch repeated dully. "Katie," she said, in the
same voice, "get up this instant." But Katie did not hear her.

The mother was loth to have been outdone in sensibility by the daughter,
and it was with some temper that she hastened to make the necessary
ministrations.

"Where am I?" asked Katie, at length, echoing the words used in this
very house, at a similar juncture, on this very day, by another lover of
the Duke.

"Ah, you may well ask that," said Mrs. Batch, with more force than
reason. "A mother's support indeed! Well! And as for you," she cried,
turning on Clarence, "sending her off like that with your--" She
was face to face again with the tragic news. Katie, remembering it
simultaneously, uttered a loud sob. Mrs. Batch capped this with a m