ty,
gloomy, and worn out; the Squire would have nothing changed from the
time when the last Mrs. Harper died there. In a little curtained alcove
the lace hung yellow and dusty over her toilet-table, just as she had
left it when she laid herself down to the pains of motherhood and
death. Her portraits--one girlish, another matronly, but still merry
and fair--hung opposite the bed. Between them was a longitudinal
family-group, in the very lowest style of art--a string of children,
from the big boy to the tottering baby, in all varieties of
impossible attitudes. Their names were written under (not
unnecessarily)--Frederick, Emily, Harriet, Mary, Eulalie. The only names
missed were Nathanael and "poor Elizabeth."

Mechanically Agatha observed all these things during the first half-hour
of her vigil; involuntarily her mind floated away to musings concerning
them, until she forcibly impelled it back to consider the present. It
was in vain. Innumerable conjectures flitted through her brain, but not
one which she could catch hold of as a truth. Of one thing only she felt
sure, that something very serious must have happened--some great mental
shock, too powerful for the Squire's feeble old age. And this shock was
certainly in some way or other connected with Major Harper.

An hour later, when she was beginning to count every beat of the old
man's pulse, and look forward with dread to a midnight vigil beside that
breathing corpse, the doctor came.

Agatha waited for his dictum--it needed very little skill to decide
that. A few questions--a shake of the head--a solemn condolatory sigh;
and all knew that the old Squire's days were numbered.

"How long?" whispered Mrs. Harper, half closing the door as they came
out.

"I cannot say. Some hours--days--possibly a week. We never know in these
cases. But, I fear, certainly within a week."

_What_ would be "within a week?" Why is it that every one dreads to say
the simple word "_die_?"

Agatha paused. She had never yet stood face to face in a house
with death. The sensation was very awful. She glanced within at the
heavy-curtained bed, and then at the fair, girlish portrait which
peered through the folds at its foot--the painted eyes, eternally young,
seeming to keep watch smilingly. The old man and his long-parted wife,
to be together again--"within a week." It was strange--strange.

"His sons should be sent for," hinted the doctor. "Mr. Locke Harper is
in Cornwall, I believe;