"I find it--difficult," replied the experienced physician, with embarrassment. "The case is--unusual. Mrs. Avery"-- "Give me the worst!" cried the tortured man. "That is impossible," said Esmerald Thorne, in a deep voice. He turned away and went to the window, where he stood looking out into the back yard. Kate was hanging out some sheets and other bedding. Avery noticed this circumstance--he had got up and stood behind the doctor--as people notice the pettiest items in the largest crises of their lives. A small fluttering white thing on the line arrested his attention. It was the silk Spanish shawl which he had given his wife. He put out his hand--groped, as a seeing man suddenly smitten blind will grope--and, fumbling, found the doctor's arm and clutched it. Then he toppled; his weight came heavily, and the physician caught him before he struck the floor. He pushed the brandy away from his lips and struggled up. Even at that moment it occurred to him that Esmerald Thorne looked at him with something like aversion. "When did she die?" "Yesterday." "What time?" "At the ebb of the tide. It was eleven o'clock in the morning." "Who was with her?" "The servants." "Oh, my God, Thorne! Nobody else? Were n't you there?" "I got there.... I doubt if she knew it.... It was only twenty minutes before the end. Hush! Avery, hush! Don't groan like that, man. Nobody is to blame. If only--you"-- Dr. Thorne checked himself, savagely, as he did when he was moved beyond endurance. "Oh, I take it all!" cried Avery. He stooped as if he bent his broad shoulders to receive some mighty burden. "I shall carry it _all_ ... forever. Men have gone mad," he added, more calmly, "for much less than I have got to face." "If you find yourself strong enough," said the physician, "I shall try to put you in possession of the facts." Again, as before, Avery thought he noticed an expression of aversion on the countenance of his old friend. Cowering, he bowed before it. It was part of his punishment; and he had already begun to feel that nothing but a consciousness of punishment could give him any comfort now. "Will you go up and see her first?" asked Dr. Thorne, as if to gain time. "She looks very lovely," he added, with quivering lip. But the room rang to such a cry as the man of mercy--used to human emergency, and old before his time in the assuagement of human anguish--had never heard. It softened Dr. Thorne a little, and he tried to be more gentle. He did not succeed altogether. Iron and fire were in the doctor's nature, and the metal did not melt for Marshall Avery.