arms
about Zillah, and groaned.

Zillah's heart seemed to stand still. She flung off Hilda's arms, she
tore herself away, and rushed to the Earl's room. Such a sudden thing
as this--could it be? Gone! And it was only a few moments since she
had seen his last glance, and heard his last words.

Yes; it was indeed so. There, as she entered that room, where now the
rays of morning entered, she saw the form of her friend--that friend
whom she called father, and loved as such. But the white face was no
longer turned to greet her; the eyes did not seek hers, nor could
that cold hand ever again return the pressure of hers. White as
marble was that face now, still and set in the fixedness of death;
cold as marble was now that hand which hers clasped in that first
frenzy of grief and horror; cold as marble and as lifeless. Never
again--never again might she hold commune with the friend who now was
numbered with the dead.

She sat in that room stricken into dumbness by the shock of this
sudden calamity. Time passed. The awful news flashed through the
house. The servants heard it, and came silent and awe-struck to the
room; but when they saw the white face, and the mourner by the
bedside, they stood still, nor did they dare to cross the threshold.
Suddenly, while the little group of servants stood there in that
doorway, with the reverence which is always felt for death and for
sorrow, there came one who forced her way through them and passed
into the room. This one bore on her face the expression of a mightier
grief than that which could be felt by any others--a grief
unspeakable--beyond words, and beyond thought. White-haired, and with
a face which now seemed turned to stone in the fixedness of its great
agony, this figure tottered rather than walked into the room. There
was no longer any self-restraint in this woman, who for years had
lived under a self-restraint that never relaxed; there was no
thought as to those who might see or hear; there was nothing but the
utter abandonment of perfect grief--of grief which had reached its
height and could know nothing more; there was nothing less than
despair itself--that despair which arises when all is lost--as this
woman flung herself past Zillah, as though she had a grief superior
to Zillah's, and a right to pass even her in the terrible precedence
of sorrow. It was thus that Mrs. Hart came before the presence of the
dead and flung herself upon the inanimate corpse, and wound her