She held her ground while the shadows in the rickyard moved toward noon; sat after a while on the steps by the door, her arms round the dog's neck, waiting till some one should come. She watched the smokeless chimneys of Friars Pardon slash its roofs with shadow, and the smoke of Iggulden's last lighted fire gradually thin and cease. Against her will she fell to wondering how many Moones, Elphicks, and Torrells had been swung round the turn of the broad Mall stairs. Then she remembered the old man's talk of being “up-ended like a milk-can,” and buried her face on Scottie's neck. At last a horse's feet clinked upon flags, rustled in the old grey straw of the rickyard, and she found herself facing the vicar--a figure she had seen at church declaiming impossibilities (Sophie was a Unitarian) in an unnatural voice. “He's dead,” she said, without preface. “Old Iggulden? I was coming for a talk with him.” The vicar passed in uncovered. “Ah!” she heard him say. “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.”