She got no further. Because something, obviously, was terribly wrong. Her mother sat there, in her armchair by the fire, but the face she turned to Judith was stricken with despair and made swollen and ugly by weeping. A half-emptied tumbler stood on the table by her side, and on the floor at her feet were shed, like leaves, the scattered flimsy pages of a close-written letter. ‘Mummy!’ Instinctively, she closed the door behind her. ‘Whatever is it?’ ‘Oh, Judith.’ She was across the carpet and kneeling by her mother's side. ‘But what is it?’ The horror of seeing her parent in tears was worse
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