I stayed awake all night, and early in the morning went downstairs. I entered mother's room. I felt anxious about her, and yet not anxious. The room was very still, and very cool and fresh. The windows were open and the blinds were up; mother always liked to sleep so, and the lovely summer air was filling the room, and there was a scent of heliotrope and roses from the flowering plants on the verandah. Mother herself was lying still as still could be on her bed. Her eyes were shut, and one of her dear white hands was lying outside the coverlet. It was partly open, as though some one had recently clasped it and then let it go. I went up to the bedside and looked down at mother. One glance at her face told me all. Some one _had_ clasped her hand, but he had not let it go. Hand in hand my father and mother had gone away, out through that open window, away and away, upward where the stars are and the Golden Gates stand open, and they had gone in together to the Land where there is no Death. CHAPTER XXVII TOO LATE On the evening of mother's funeral, I was sitting in the little room. I had the little room quite to myself, Jane had arranged that. I had gone through, I thought, every phase of emotion, and I was not feeling anything just then; I was sitting quiet, in a sort of stupor. The days which had intervened between mother's death and her funeral had been packed full of events. People had come and gone. Many kind words had been said to me. Mr. Fanning had arrived, and had taken my hand once again and kissed it, and looked with unutterable sorrow into my eyes; and then, seeing that I could not bear his presence, had gone away, and Mrs. Fanning had opened her arms, and taken me to her heart, and sobbed on my neck, but I could not shed a tear in return; and Captain and Mrs. Furlong had been more than kind, and more than good; and the Duchess had arrived one morning and gone into the room where mother lay (that is, what was left of mother), and had sobbed, oh, so bitterly, holding mother's cold hand, and kissing her cheek; and then she had turned to me, and said-- "You must come home with me, Westenra, you must come away from here, you are my charge now." But I refused to leave mother, and I even said-- "You neglected her while she was alive, and now you want to take me away from her, from the last I shall ever see of her beloved face." "I could not come; I did not dare to," said the Duchess, "it was on account of Jim. I have been grieving for Jim, and I thought I should have let his death out to her; so I had to stay away, but my heart was aching, and when I heard that she--that she had gone--I"--and then the Duchess buried her face in her hands, and sobbed, oh, so bitterly. But I could not shed a tear.