"Oh, I can't bear those bells," Mrs. Brandon cried. "Shut the windows,
Joan."
Joan went across and closed them. The bells were suddenly removed, but
seemed to be the more insistent in their urgency because they were shut
away.
The door was suddenly flung open, and Brandon stood there.
"Oh, what is it?" Mrs. Brandon cried, starting to her feet.
He was a man convulsed with anger; she had seen him in these rages before,
when his blue eyes stared with an emptiness of vision and his whole body
seemed to be twisted as though he were trying to climb to some height
whence he might hurl himself down and destroy utterly that upon which he
fell.
The letter tumbled from his hand. He caught the handle of the door as
though he would tear it from its socket, but his voice, when at last it
came, was quiet, almost his ordinary voice.
"His name is never to be mentioned in this house again."
"What has he done?"
"That's enough. What I say. His name is never to be mentioned again."
The two women stared at him. He seemed to come down from a great height,
turned and went, very carefully closing the door behind him.
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