nstead
of thinking about him, I could have met him. I could have been with
him."

Peter shuddered.

"I am glad you were not with him."

Electra was not listening. She had placed her hand on the hair of the
fallen man, tenderly and yet with reverence.

"He is splendid, Peter, isn't he?" she said, as if she wondered at life
and its fleeting forms. "He looks like a god, sleeping." Some echo of
her words came back to her, and she felt a momentary pleasure at their
sound. Then, very shortly it seemed, men came, the doctor and others who
had authority, and Electra was turned out of the room.

"Go upstairs," Peter besought her.

But she stepped out, bare-headed, into the air.

"No," she answered, "I am going to tell his daughter."

"No!" Suddenly Peter remembered how little she was fitted to be a kindly
messenger. "No, Electra. I will go."

Electra looked at him in a calm surprise.

"He would wish it," she said. "He would wish me to do everything." And
she was gone.

Peter went back into the room, where there were quick voices and
peremptory demands. Markham MacLeod was being interrogated in a way that
had never befallen him before. His body was being asked to bear witness
of the fashion by which it had come to its dumb estate, wherein it could
not compel others, but was most ruthlessly at their will.

Rose, at grannie's knee, in a mute gratitude that now she was to stay
here, because it had been wonderfully decreed, saw Electra coming up the
walk. She ran to meet her light-heartedly; in her flooding delight it
seemed to her as if even Electra might acquiesce in her reprieve.

At the foot of the steps they met, Rose all pleadingness, as if again
she begged Electra to love her. But Electra delivered her news
straightway. She felt like nothing but the messenger of MacLeod.

"He is dead," she said, with the utmost quietude.

Rose stared at her.

"Who is dead?" she managed to ask.

"Markham MacLeod."

Rose leaned forward and gazed still in her face. She was well convinced
that this look was real: a look of hopeless grief, though the words were
so fantastic.

"Electra," she said gently, and even put out a hand and touched her on
the arm. "Electra! What is it?"

"I have told you," said Electra, "he is dead. We found him in the ferns,
Peter and I. He is at my house. We thought you ought to know it."

"Come!" said Rose. She seized her hand, and Electra pulled it away
again, quietly, and yet as if it had no