But 'twas his wife who knelt beside his prostrate body, waving all else aside with a great majestic gesture of her arm. "Back! back!" she cried. "Air! air! and water! My lord! My dear lord!" But he did not answer, or even stir, though she bent close to him and thrust her hand within his breast. And then the frightened guests beheld a strange but beautiful and loving thing, such as might have moved any heart to tenderness and wonder. This great beauty, this worshipped creature, put her arms beneath and about the helpless, awful body--for so its pallor and stillness indeed made it--and lifted it in their powerful whiteness as if it had been the body of a child, and so bore it to a couch near and laid it down, kneeling beside it. Anne and Osmonde were beside her. Osmonde pale himself, but gently calm and strong. He had despatched for a physician the instant he saw the fall. "My lady," he said, bending over her, "permit me to approach. I have some knowledge of these seizures. Your pardon!" He knelt also and took the moveless hand, feeling the pulse; he, too, thrust his hand within the breast and held it there, looking at the sunken face. "My dear lord," her ladyship was saying, as if to the prostrate man's ear alone, knowing that her tender voice must reach him if aught would--as indeed was truth. "Edward! My dear--dear lord!" Osmonde held his hand steadily over the heart. The guests shrunk back, stricken with terror. There was that in this corner of the splendid room which turned faces pale. Osmonde slowly withdrew his hand, and turning to the kneeling woman--with a pallor like that of marble, but with a noble tenderness and pity in his eyes-- "My lady," he said, "you are a brave woman. Your great courage must sustain you. The heart beats no more. A noble life is finished." * * * * * The guests heard, and drew still farther back, a woman or two faintly whimpering; a hurrying lacquey parted the crowd, and so, way being made for him, the physician came quickly forward. Anne put her shaking hands up to cover her gaze. Osmonde stood still, looking down. My Lady Dunstanwolde knelt by the couch and hid her beautiful face upon the dead man's breast. CHAPTER XII--Which treats of the obsequies of my Lord of Dunstanwolde, of his lady's widowhood, and of her return to town All that remained of my Lord Dunstanwolde was borne back to his ancestral home, and there laid to rest in the ancient tomb in which his fathers slept. Many came from town to pay him respect, and the Duke of Osmonde was, as was but fitting, among them. The countess kept her own apartments, and none but her sister, Mistress Anne, beheld her.