‘How long?’ echoed Martin, meditatively. ‘Oh, ever so many years. Why, I don’t remember having seen that book since I was quite a little lad.’ ‘Did you ever see it after your sister’s mind went wrong?’ ‘That’s asking too much. I can’t remember so closely as that; and yet, on reflection, I don’t think I ever did see it after Muriel’s long illness. I was sent to Helston Grammar School just at that time, and I certainly don’t remember ever having seen that Bible after I went to school. However, I dare say it’s somewhere about the house. Nothing is ever lost at Borcel. That Bible is among my poor mother’s stores, most likely. She was always a great hand for keeping old things.’ ‘I should like very much to see it, if you could find it for me by and by, Martin.’ By and by meant when that solemn presence of the dead, which set its seal upon all things at Borcel, had been removed from the old farmhouse. ‘I’ll look for it among mother’s books next week,’ said Martin. ‘There are a good many books upon the old walnut-wood chest of drawers in her bedroom.’ * * * * * Maurice stayed at Borcel all through that dismal week, though he received a very kind letter from Mrs. Penwyn, begging him to take up his abode at the Manor House for the rest of his stay in Cornwall. He felt that it would be a hard thing to leave Martin in that house of gloom, and he knew that his presence there was some kind of comfort, even to Michael Trevanard, who had given way to complete despondency since his wife’s death. The look of the place was so strange to him without Bridget, he complained. For nine-and-thirty years she had been the chief person in that house—the prop and stay of all things—the axis upon which the wheel of life turned. The farmer knew that he owed her the maintenance and increase of his fortune. It was Bridget’s help, Bridget’s indefatigable spirit guiding and sustaining him, which had made him rich enough to buy Borcel, had the Squire been disposed to sell it. She had taught him to hoard his money—she had held him back from all share in the boisterous pleasures of his class; but she had kept his table liberally, provided assiduously for all his creature comforts; and, in a drowsy monotonous way, had made life very easy to him. He looked round him now, and seeing her vacant chair, wondered what he was to do with the remnant of his days. The silent horror of the house stupefied him. He went in and out of the rooms in a purposeless manner; he looked into the kitchen where the two girls sat stitching away at their black gowns, and looking forward to the funeral as a ceremonial in which it was rather a grand thing to be concerned. He went into old Mrs. Trevanard’s bedroom, to which apartment the old lady was still confined by that chronic rheumatic gout which at times crippled her.