uldn't quit after that, no matter what
misery Mrs. DeBrugh heaped on her. And so she went about her work at all
hours, never tiring, always striving to please.

She left the study, closing the great door silently behind her, for old
Mr. DeBrugh had sunk deeper into the sofa, into the realms of peaceful
sleep, and she did not wish to disturb him.

"Letty!" came the shrill cry of Mrs. DeBrugh from down the hall. "Get
these pictures and take them to the attic at once. And tell Mr. DeBrugh
to come here."

Letty went for the pictures.

"Mr. DeBrugh is asleep," she said, explaining why she was not obeying
the last command.

"Well, I'll soon fix that! Lazy old man! Sleeps all day with that smelly
pipe between his teeth. If he had an ounce of pep about him, he'd get
out and work the flowers. Sleeps too much anyway. Not good for him."

She stamped out of the room and down the hall, and Letty heard her open
the door of the study and scream at her husband.

"Hector DeBrugh! Wake up!"

There was a silence, during which Letty wondered what was going on. Then
she heard the noisy clop-clop of Mrs. DeBrugh's slippers on the hardwood
floor of the study, and she knew the woman was going to shake the
daylights out of Mr. DeBrugh and frighten him into wakefulness. She
could even imagine she heard Mrs. DeBrugh grasp the lapels of her
husband's coat and shake him back and forth against the chair.

Then she heard the scream. It came quite abruptly from Mrs. DeBrugh in
the study, and it frightened Letty out of her wits momentarily. After
that there was the thud of a falling body and the clatter of an upset
piece of furniture.

Letty hurried out of the room into the hall and through the open door of
the study. She saw Mrs. DeBrugh slumped on the floor in a faint, and
beside her an upset ash-tray. But her eyes did not linger on the woman,
nor the tray. Instead, they focussed on the still form of Mr. DeBrugh in
the sofa.

He was slumped down, his head twisted to one side and his mouth hanging
open from the shaking Mrs. DeBrugh had given him. The meerschaum had
slipped from between his teeth, and the cold ashes were scattered on his
trousers.

Even then, before the sea of tears began to flow from her eyes, Letty
knew the old man was dead. She knew what he had meant by the speech he
had said to her only a few minutes before.

* * * * *

"His heart," was the comment of the doctor who arrived a short t