.

.

governess, his wife naturally responded.
He was solemnly fragmentary.

I broke in with the observation that it must have been before the crash.
Fyne nodded with deepened gravity, stating in his bass tone-- "Just before," and indulged himself with a weighty period of solemn silence.
De Barral, he resumed suddenly, was not coming to Brighton for week-ends regularly, then.

Must have been conscious already of the approaching disaster.