s not tasted food for about
twenty hours, such a discovery could not fail to be depressing, and Mr
Armstrong meekly decided to summon Raffles to his assistance. As he
passed down the passage, he could not forbear halting for a moment at
the door of a certain room, behind which he knew the mortal remains of
his dead employer lay. As he paused, not liking to enter, liking still
less to pass on, the sound of footsteps within startled him. It was not
difficult, after a moment's reflection, to guess to whom they belonged,
and the tutor softly tapped on the door.

The only answer was the abrupt halting of the footsteps. Mr Armstrong
entered and found his pupil.

Roger was standing in the ulster he had worn last night. His eyes were
black and heavy with weariness, his face was almost as white as the face
of him who lay on the couch, and as he turned to the open door his teeth
chattered with cold.

"I couldn't leave him alone," whispered he apologetically, as the tutor
laid a gentle hand on his arm.

"Of course--of course," replied Mr Armstrong. "I guessed it was you.
Would you rather be left alone?"

"No," said the lad wearily. "I thought by staying here I should get
some help--some--I don't know what, Armstrong. But instead, I'm half
asleep. I've been yawning and shivering, and forgotten who was here--
and--" Here his eyes filled with tears.

"Dear old fellow," said the tutor, "you are fagged out. Come and get a
little rest."

Roger sighed, partly to feel himself beaten, partly at the prospect of
rest.

"All right!" said he. "I'm ashamed you should see me so weak when I
wanted to be strong. Yes, I'll come--in one minute."

He walked over to the couch and knelt beside it. His worn-out body had
succumbed at last to the misery against which it had battled so long,
and for a moment he yielded himself to his sorrow. The tutor waited a
moment, and then walked quietly from the room.

For a quarter of an hour he paced restlessly in the cold passage
outside; then, as his pupil did not appear, he returned to the chamber
of death. Roger Ingleton, as he expected, had fallen asleep where he
knelt.

The wretched days between the death and the funeral dragged on in the
usual dismal fashion. Mrs Ingleton kept her room; the domestics took
the occasion to neglect their work, and Roger Ingleton, minor, passed
through all the stages from inconsolable misery to subdued cheerfulness.
Mr Armstrong alone went through n