"Oh, can it be Leonard Davitt!" whispered Winifred under her breath, as pale and trembling with emotion she drew near the edge of the crowd. "Poor boy! What shall we say to his mother?" "Hush!" Flint answered. "May we carry him into the house?" "Of course--of course. Oh, do hurry with the doctor. Perhaps he is not dead, after all." With that ready adaptiveness which in Americans so often supplies the place of training, four of the men stepped forward, and lifting the body gently bore it up the steps and through the open door into the drawing-room, and laid it on the lounge just under the bullet-hole in the wall. A doctor bustled in, box in hand. He made no effort to open his case, however. One look was sufficient. "Death must have been instantaneous," he said. "What a queer thing,--a suicide on Thanksgiving Day!" CHAPTER XXII THE END _Extract from the Journal of Miss Susan Standish, Oldburyport, December 1._ It is good to be at home again. I said it over to myself many a time yesterday, as I was helping Mary to take the covers off the family portraits, and sitting in front of the old andirons with the firelight dancing in their great brass balls. I felt it when I sat down at my mahogany table and laid my fingers on the ebony handle of the old silver coffee-pot. Things come to have a distinct individuality, almost a personality, and we unconsciously impute to them a response to our feeling for them. It seemed to me that the old claw-foot sofa was as glad to get me back as the cat herself, and the door swung wide with a squeak of welcome. My desk too stood open with friendly invitation, and on it lay a couple of letters. The first was from Ben Bradford. It was so long since I had heard from the boy that I opened his letter first. I wrote him last month, sending him some news and more good advice. I counselled him to stop thinking about Winifred Anstice or any other girl, and throw himself into his studies, to make a record which should do credit to the Bradford name. He replies that the advice is excellent; only one drawback,--it cannot be done. He has tried throwing himself into his studies, but they closed over him without a trace. Talk about records,--he will be glad enough if he gets through his examinations without a dead flunk. As for not thinking about Winifred, he says I have not helped him to the desired end by what I wrote about Mr. Flint and his attentions. Of course, Ben says, he could not expect that Winifred would wait for him. In these days no man could hope to marry until he was white-headed like that Flint; but as for himself he never did or should see any woman whom he could love except Winifred Anstice.