"The question is, how did he die ?" Jerome looked up in Simon Basset's face.

"He died the same way you will, some time," said he.

And with that Simon Basset let go his arm suddenly, and he was gone.
"Lord!" said Jake Noyes, under his breath.

Simon Basset said not another word; his grandfather, his uncle, and a brother had all taken their own lives, and he knew that the others were thinking of it.
They all wondered if the boy had been keen-witted enough to give this hard hit at Simon intentionally, but he had not.

Poor little Jerome had never speculated on the laws of heredity; he had only meant to deny that his father had come to any more disgraceful end than the common one of all mankind.