h the crack of the door, with the cook to hold her
hand behind, and there she saw the Captain on his knees at the side of
his father's corpse, not saying a word, only with his head down. And
when the doctor came back with me, with his night-gown positive
under his coat, the first thing he said was, 'My dear Sir--my lord, I
mean--don't take on so; such things will always happen in this world;'
which shows that my master was no brute.

"Then the Captain stood up in his strength and height, without any pride
and without any shame, only in the power of a simple heart, and he said
words fit to hang him:

"'This is my doing! There is no one else to blame. If my father is dead,
I have killed him!'

"Several of us now were looking in, and the news going out like a
winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage was
crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their faces.
And of course a good score of them ran away to tell that the Captain had
murdered his father. The milk-man stood there with his yoke and cans,
and his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and, not being able to hide
himself plainly, he pulled out his slate and began to make his bill.

"'Away with you all!' your father said, coming suddenly out of the
dining-room, while the doctor was unbuttoning my lord, who was dead with
all his day clothes on; and every body brushed away like flies at the
depth of his voice and his stature. Then he bolted the door, with only
our own people and the doctor and the constable inside. Your mother was
sleeping like a lamb, as I could swear, having had a very tiring day the
day before, and being well away from the noise of the passage, as well
as at a time when they must sleep whenever sleep will come, miss. Bless
her gentle heart, what a blessing to be out of all that scare of it!

"All this time, you must understand, there was no sign yet what had
happened to his lordship, over and above his being dead. All of us
thought, if our minds made bold to think, that it must have pleased
the Lord to take his lordship either with an appleplexy or a sudden
heart-stroke, or, at any rate, some other gracious way not having any
flow of blood in it. But now, while your father was gone up stairs--for
he knew that his father was dead enough--to be sure that your mother was
quiet, and perhaps to smooth her down for trouble, and while I was run
away to stop the ranting of the children, old Dr. Diggory and that
rur