"Serve dinner at once." And then he strode into the back parlor, which was the usual sitting room of his wife and granddaughter. The room was empty and darkened. More than ever infuriated by fatigue, hunger, and the supposed disregard of his authority, he came out and walked up stairs to look for his wife in her own room. He pushed open the door and entered. That room was also dark, only for the faint red light that came from the coal fire in the grate. By this he dimly perceived a female form sitting near the bed, and whom he supposed to be his wife. "Why, in the fiend's name, is the whole house as dark as pitch?" he roughly demanded, as he went to a front window and threw open the shutters, letting in the white light of the snow storm. "Grandfather!" It was the voice of Cora that spoke, and there was a something in its tone that struck and almost awed even the Iron King. He turned abruptly. Cora had risen from her chair and was now standing by the bed. But on the bed lay a little, still, fair form, with hands folded over its breast, with the eyes shut down forever, and all over the fair, wan, placid face was "the peace of God which passeth all understanding." "What is this?" demanded Old Aaron Rockharrt, as he came up to the bed. "Look at her. She rests at last. I have been with her twenty years, and this is the first time I have ever seen her rest in peace." Old Aaron Rockharrt stood like a stone beside the bed, gazing down on the dead. "She is safe now, never more to be startled, or frightened, or tortured by any one. 'Safe, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest,'" continued Cora. Still Old Aaron stood like a stone beside the bed and gazed down on the dead. Suddenly, without moving or withdrawing his gaze from where it rested, he asked in a low, gruff tone: "How did this happen?" "She fainted in her chair, and died in that faint." "When? where? from what?" "Within an hour after you had left us together in the back parlor, with the paper containing the news of my husband's death," answered Cora, speaking in a tone of most unnatural calmness. "Had that excitement anything to do with her swoon?" "I do not know." "Give me the particulars."