but imperfectly the
drift of the doctor's simple words of comfort. "It is too hard--too hard
to bear."

They had reached the back door, by which Dr. Muir preferred to make his
entrance. He uttered a few words to the servants about the accident that
had occurred, and then sent a message asking to speak alone with Mrs.
Luttrell. The answer came back that Mrs. Luttrell would see him in the
study. And thither the doctor went, leaving Brian in one of the cold,
stone corridors that divided the kitchens and offices from the
living-rooms of the house. Meanwhile, the body of Richard Luttrell was
silently carried into one of the lower rooms until another place could
be prepared for its reception.

How long Brian waited, with his forehead, pressed against the wall, deaf
and blind to everything but an overmastering dread of his mother's agony
which had taken complete possession of him, he did not know. He only
knew that after a certain time--an eternity it seemed to him--a bitter,
wailing cry came to his ears; a cry that pierced through the thick walls
and echoed down the dark passages, although it was neither loud nor
long. But there was something in the intensity of the grief that it
expressed which seemed to give it a peculiarly penetrating quality. Ah,
it was this sound that Brian now knew he had been dreading; this sound
that cut him to the heart.

Dr. Muir, on coming hurriedly out from the study, found Brian in the
corridor with his hands pressed to his ears as if to keep out the sound
of that one fearful cry.

"Come away, my boy," he said, pitifully. "We can do no good here. Where
is Miss Vivian?"

Brian's hands dropped to his sides. He kept his eyes fixed on the
doctor's face as if he would read his very soul. And for the moment
Doctor Muir could not meet that piercing gaze. He tried to pass on, but
Brian laid his hand on his arm.

"Tell me all," he said. "What does my mother say? Has it killed her?"

"Killed her? People are not so easily killed by grief, my dear Mr.
Brian," said the doctor. "Come away, come away. Your mother is not just
herself, and speaks wildly, as mothers are wont to do when they lose
their first-born son. We'll not mind what she says just now. Where is
Miss Vivian? It is she that I want to see."

"I understand," said Brian, taking away his hands from the doctor's arm
and hiding his face with them, "my mother will not see me; she will not
forgive my--my--accursed carelessness----"

"Worse th