Read "A Fatal Silence, Vol. 1 (of 3)" by Florence Marryat online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THE CONFESSION.
It was a terrible shock to her -- so sudden and so unexpected that for some time she could not believe it to be true. She did not care for the dead man, far from it. For the last twelve hours she had been regarding the fact of his having met her in Haltham as the greatest misfortune that could have occurred to her. But, though always bluff and outspoken, he had been her friend and her protector in the bygone days; and even if he had been her enemy, it was frightful to think he should have been cut off so suddenly and by such a terrible death. She read mechanically how the accident had occurred -- how the unfortunate passengers had been crushed and mutilated and scalded and burned -- how they had shrieked and groaned, and how the survivors had wept and fainted, until her heart grew sick within her. But still her eyes kept turning from the detailed horrors that make the fortune of a penny paper to the name at the head of the list of killed, ‘Seth Brunt, mariner.'