ven now come.

"Why couldn't he have been here!" she said impatiently. "He wants to
see the boats himself--that's what it is!"

However, on looking round to the bed she brightened, for she saw
that Jude was apparently sleeping, though he was not in the usual
half-elevated posture necessitated by his cough. He had slipped
down, and lay flat. A second glance caused her to start, and she
went to the bed. His face was quite white, and gradually becoming
rigid. She touched his fingers; they were cold, though his body was
still warm. She listened at his chest. All was still within. The
bumping of near thirty years had ceased.

After her first appalled sense of what had happened the faint notes
of a military or other brass band from the river reached her ears;
and in a provoked tone she exclaimed, "To think he should die just
now! Why did he die just now!" Then meditating another moment or
two she went to the door, softly closed it as before, and again
descended the stairs.

"Here she is!" said one of the workmen. "We wondered if you were
coming after all. Come along; we must be quick to get a good
place... Well, how is he? Sleeping well still? Of course, we don't
want to drag 'ee away if--"

"Oh yes--sleeping quite sound. He won't wake yet," she said
hurriedly.

They went with the crowd down Cardinal Street, where they presently
reached the bridge, and the gay barges burst upon their view. Thence
they passed by a narrow slit down to the riverside path--now dusty,
hot, and thronged. Almost as soon as they had arrived the grand
procession of boats began; the oars smacking with a loud kiss on the
face of the stream, as they were lowered from the perpendicular.

"Oh, I say--how jolly! I'm glad I've come," said Arabella. "And--it
can't hurt my husband--my being away."

On the opposite side of the river, on the crowded barges, were
gorgeous nosegays of feminine beauty, fashionably arrayed in green,
pink, blue, and white. The blue flag of the boat club denoted the
centre of interest, beneath which a band in red uniform gave out the
notes she had already heard in the death-chamber. Collegians of all
sorts, in canoes with ladies, watching keenly for "our" boat, darted
up and down. While she regarded the lively scene somebody touched
Arabella in the ribs, and looking round she saw Vilbert.

"That philtre is operating, you know!" he said with a leer. "Shame
on 'ee to wreck a heart so!"

"I shan't ta