pent among the people of Carlingford. Meanwhile John
stood at the door and watched him, and of course thought it was very
"queer." "It aint as if he'd a-been sitting up all night, like our
young ladies," said John to himself, and unconsciously noted the
circumstance down in his memory against the Curate.

When Mr Wentworth entered the sick-room, he found all very silent and
still in that darkened chamber. Lucy was seated by the bedside,
wrapped in a loose dressing-gown, and looked as if she had not slept
for several nights; while Miss Wodehouse, who, notwithstanding all her
anxiety to be of use, was far more helpless than Lucy, stood on the
side next the door, with her eyes fixed on her sister, watching with
pathetic unserviceableness for the moment when she could be of some
use. As for the patient himself, he lay in a kind of stupor, from
which he scarcely ever could be roused, and showed no tokens at the
moment of hearing or seeing anybody. The scene was doubly sad, but it
was without the excitement which so often breathes in the atmosphere
of death. There was no eager listening for the last word, no last
outbreaks of tenderness. The daughters were both hushed into utter
silence; and Lucy, who was more reasonable than her sister, had even
given up those wistful beseeching looks at the patient, with which
Miss Wodehouse still regarded him, as if perhaps he might be thus
persuaded to speak. The nurse whom Dr Marjoribanks had sent to assist
them was visible through an open door, sleeping very comfortably in
the adjoining room. Mr Wentworth came into the silent chamber with all
his anxieties throbbing in his heart, bringing life at its very height
of agitation and tumult into the presence of death. He went forward to
the bed, and tried for an instant to call up any spark of intelligence
that might yet exist within the mind of the dying man; but Mr
Wodehouse was beyond the voice of any priest. The Curate said the
prayers for the dying at the bedside, suddenly filled with a great
pity for the man who was thus taking leave unawares of all this
mournful splendid world. Though the young man knew many an ordinary
sentiment about the vanity of life, and had given utterance to that
effect freely in the way of his duty, he was still too fresh in his
heart to conceive actually that any one could leave the world without
poignant regrets; and when his prayer was finished, he stood looking
at the patient with inexpressible compassion.