The frantic cry, already on David's lips, died silently away, his throat stiffened, he drew a long breath. For an instant he stood still in the doorway; then, with a bent and sullen head, he turned and crept back through the hall to the front stairs, which had scarcely ever been touched by his foot, and thence to his tiny room, where he knelt down by his narrow bed. How terrible was the strange figure under the black covering, with the blazing lights beating upon it, and the staring villagers stealing in to look! It seemed incredible that his father could lie still and suffer their scrutiny. He wished that he might go down and turn them out. But he did not dare to trust his voice, and besides, his mother accepted it all as though it were proper and right. Then David forgot the intruders, forgot his mother. His father was dead, of whom he had often thought unkindly, and his father was all he had in the world. He would never be able to speak to him again, never be able to lay a hand upon his shoulder as he sat reading his paper, never meet again that sudden glance of incomprehensible distress. Death worked its alchemy; now at last the poor father had his way with his son's heart. "He was my father!" cried David. "I have no father!" His breath choked, his heart seemed to smother him; he felt himself growing light-headed as he knelt by the low bed. He had had nothing to eat since noon; he had had since that time many things to suffer; he thought suddenly in his exhaustion that perhaps he, too, was about to die. Presently there was a step in the hall and his heart leaped. Perhaps his mother had come, perhaps she did not wish to show her grief to these curious people. But the person outside knocked at the door and his mother would not have knocked. "What is it?" asked David. "It is me," said Bevy. "I brought you a little something to eat." Bevy waited outside, plate and glass in hand. She had seen David's entrance and exit. Prompted now partly by kindness and sympathy, and partly by an altogether human and natural curiosity to see as much of the house and the bereaved family as she could, Bevy had carried him his supper. But Bevy was not rewarded, as she had hoped. "Put it down," commanded a voice from within. "Thank you." Bevy made another effort. "Do you want anything, David?" "No, thank you," said the voice again. "Yes, well," answered Bevy and went down the front steps. If Bevy could have had her wish, her whole body would have been one great eye to take in all this magnificence of thick carpets and fine furniture.