. "Heart-failure! How long have you
been here?"

"Since a quarter to eleven." She looked at her watch earnestly and saw
that her hand did not shake.

"I'll sit with him now till the doctor comes. D'you think you could
tell him, and--yes, Mrs. Betts in the cottage with the wistaria next the
blacksmith's? I'm afraid this has been rather a shock to you."

Sophie nodded, and fled toward the village. Her body failed her for a
moment; she dropped beneath a hedge, and looked back at the great house.
In some fashion its silence and stolidity steadied her for her errand.

Mrs. Betts, small, black-eyed, and dark, was almost as unconcerned as
Friars Pardon.

"Yiss, yiss, of course. Dear me! Well, Iggulden he had had his day in my
father's time. Muriel, get me my little blue bag, please. Yiss, ma'am.
They come down like ellum-branches in still weather. No warnin' at all.
Muriel, my bicycle's be'ind the fowlhouse. I'll tell Dr. Dallas, ma'am."

She trundled off on her wheel like a brown bee, while Sophie--heaven
above and earth beneath changed--walked stiffly home, to fall over
George at his letters, in a muddle of laughter and tears.

"It's all quite natural for them," she gasped. "They come down like
ellum-branches in still weather. Yiss, ma'am.' No, there wasn't anything
in the least horrible, only--only--Oh, George, that poor shiny stick of
his between his poor, thin knees! I couldn't have borne it if Scottie
had howled. I didn't know the vicar was so--so sensitive. He said he was
afraid it was ra--rather a shock. Mrs. Betts told me to go home, and
I wanted to collapse on her floor. But I didn't disgrace myself. I--I
couldn't have left him--could I?"

"You're sure you've took no 'arm?" cried Mrs. Cloke, who had heard the
news by farm-telegraphy, which is older but swifter than Marconi's.

"No. I'm perfectly well," Sophie protested.

"You lay down till tea-time." Mrs. Cloke patted her shoulder. "THEY'll
be very pleased, though she 'as 'ad no proper understandin' for twenty
years."

"They" came before twilight--a black-bearded man in moleskins, and a
little palsied old woman, who chirruped like a wren.

"I'm his son," said the man to Sophie, among the lavender bushes. "We
'ad a difference--twenty year back, and didn't speak since. But I'm his
son all the 'same, and we thank you for the watching."

"I'm only glad I happened to be there," she answered, and from the
bottom of her heart she meant it.

"We heard he spo