HELEN by Georgette Heyer (Tweet Read #2)
Part I - The Child
Chapter I
II

MILDRED, Mrs Beazley, came on the evening of the following day. (1/14)

She had had no time to buy mourning clothes, as she would have liked to do, but she had found a very dark blue coat and skirt, which she wore in preference to her new green dress. It was more respectful to the dead, she thought. (2/14)

She had been weeping, and as she crossed the hall she tiptoed.
“Oh, James!” she said, and her hushed voice irritated him, “My poor James! Dear Kitty! my only sister! the shock!” Tears choked her; she clung to his hands. (3/14)

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I would have sent for you before, only… there wasn’t time.”
She was shocked to hear him speak so levelly. She had always thought him cold and unfeeling. “I can’t believe it!” she said. “I can’t! I can’t! She was always so full of life!” (4/14)

“Please!” he said sharply.
“If only I had been here!” For a time she sobbed, muffled, into her handkerchief, while he stood with his back to her, staring out of the window. “To me—such a blow! You’re so brave—I can’t understand it. What you must have gone through!” (5/14)