She knocked softly, and waited for a minute or so, but there was no answer. Then she took courage and went in alone; while Peacock, and the housekeeper, and Miss Scratchell waited breathlessly in the corridor. There was a pause, which to these listeners seemed long, and then there rose a cry that thrilled them. They went in all together, full of fear, and found Beatrix Harefield on her knees beside a sofa, on which, stretched at full length, clad in its monk’s robe of gray cloth, lay that which a few hours ago had been the master of all things on the Water House estate, ruler of many lives, by the sublime right of ten thousand a year. ‘Send some one for Mr. Namby,’ cried Peacock. ‘Come away with me, Miss Beatrix, love,’ cried the housekeeper. ‘You can’t do any good, and you’ll only make yourself unhappy. Come away with me and Miss Scratchell.’ Bella stood looking on, white and scared, and said not a word. Beatrix heard good Mrs. Peters’ entreaties, but took no heed. She was still upon her knees, clasping a dead man’s icy hand, and all the life within her seemed frozen like his. CHAPTER II. ‘DUST AND AN ENDLESS DARKNESS.’ THE church clock struck twelve, and, as the last stroke died into silence, Little Yafford school-house discharged a torrent of children into the rainy street, boys in red comforters, girls in blue comforters, comforters of the three primary colours and all their secondaries. Overcoats and cloaks were scarce at Little Yafford, and the worsted comforter was the chief winter clothing. ‘Rain, rain, go away, come again another day,’ shrieked the children, making a choral appeal to the clerk of the weather. And they went whooping down the street, spinning tops, flying shuttlecocks, as if the rain were rather agreeable than otherwise. Cyril Culverhouse came out of the school-house, unfurling his well-worn umbrella. He had been holding an examination of the scholars at the end of the year, and was disheartened at finding some of them woefully ignorant, despite the pains he had taken with both pupils and teachers during the last twelve months. It was uphill work. He found the children’s minds fairly stored with a collection of hard facts. They knew all about the deluge, and the passage of the Red Sea. They could tell him the names of the prophets, and were as familiar with Daniel and Jonah as if the adventures of those holy men had been events of the last year; but of spiritual things, of the principles and meaning of their religion, they had hardly an idea. Here all was dark. They were Christians because they had been signed with the sign of the Cross, and sprinkled with holy water by the parson. Their catechisms told them all about that. But what Christianity meant, with its Divine law of love, justice, and mercy, they knew nothing.