bian, speaking for the first and
last and only time, abruptly and indiscreetly to his despotic father.

But the Iron King took no notice of the words, nor did he repeat the
question. He drank one cup of coffee, ate half a roll, and then arose
and left the table, without a word. He did not return to his dead wife's
chamber, which he probably knew would now have to be given up to
dressers of the dead and to the undertakers.

He went and locked himself in the library, and was seen no more that
day.

Cora, with her woman's intuition, understood the accession of hardness
that was worn as a mask to conceal grief and remorse.

"Be patient with him, Uncle Fabian. He is your father, after all. And
he suffers! Oh, he suffers! Yes; much more than any of us do," she said.

"Do you think so, Cora?" inquired Mr. Fabian, looking at her in
surprise.

"I know he does," she answered.

"Well, he has good reason to!" concluded Mr. Fabian. Then, after a
pause, he added: "But I am sorry I spoke roughly to my father! I will
make it up to him, or try to do so, by extra deference."

Then they all arose from the table.

Mr. Fabian and Mr. Clarence to attend to the business of the mournful
occasion, which Old Aaron Rockharrt, in his proud, reserved, absorbed
sorrow, seemed to have ignored or forgotten.

Cora stepped away to her grandmother's room, to have a quiet hour beside
the beloved dead before the undertaker should come in and take
possession.

"It is only her body that is dead, I know. But the hands had caressed me
and the lips kissed me; and, right or wrong, I love that body as well as
the heavenly soul that lived within it! The flesh cleaves to the flesh.
And so long as we are in the flesh we will, we must, haunt the shrines
that contain the bodies of those we love," she thought, as reverently
she entered the chamber of death, closed the door, and went up to the
bed whereon lay the tenantless temple in which so lately lived the most
loving, the most patient spirit she had ever known!

But what is this! Into what strange sphere of ineffable peace has Cora
entered? She could not understand the change that came over her. She had
a gentle impulse to close her eyes to all visible matters and yield
herself up to the sweetness of this sphere. Her dear one was living, was
young again, was happy, was sleeping, watched by angels, who would
presently awaken her to the eternal life.

Cora knelt down by the bed and lifted up her heart