Mrs Mallison rose from her seat and hurried round the table. She opened her arms as she went; they were wide open when she reached her husband's side, and he shrank into them, his head sliding downward on her shoulder with a strange unnatural looseness. "As if he had no neck," Teresa thought to herself as she looked on, "as if he had no neck!" "There, my dear, there!" cried the wife tenderly, "don't get upset! Whatever you've done, you meant it for the best. We know you well enough to be sure of that. There, my dear, there! You've been good to us for thirty-five years--we're not going to blame you if you've made a mistake now... Teresa! speak to your father... comfort him... Henry, look up!... My God... Henry, _speak_!" Her voice rose to a wail, for even as she spoke, even as she cradled him in her arms, the bolt fell,--so suddenly, so swiftly, that one second it was not, and the next it was there. One side of the face crumpled and fell, the eye closed, the mouth stretched in a ghastly grin. His wife seized his right arm, and shook it violently, but it fell to his side, heavy as lead. Within the loose tweed coat the shoulder seemed to disappear. "Mother, Mother!" cried Teresa wildly, "you were so kind to him. You were so kind... You didn't blame him one bit." They got him to bed and sent for the doctor, but he never regained consciousness. Before the afternoon was over he had breathed his last. "And now, I suppose," Mrs Mallison said dully, "Mary will come home." CHAPTER THIRTY. A MEETING. Mary came speeding home by the first train after receipt of the telegraphic message, and arrived at the Cottage on the afternoon of the following day. A strange maid with a scared expression opened the door, and stared aghast as the new arrival pushed past her into the dining-room. The room was empty, and Mary stood upon the threshold looking round the familiar scene, which seemed so strangely altered by her year's absence. The blinds were drawn, but even in the half-lights its proportions appeared shrunken, its furnishings shabby and poor. On the centre table stood a bowl of spring flowers, and two or three store catalogues, certain pages of which were marked with strips of writing paper. It seemed to Mary that those books had lain in identically the same positions on the morning on which she had left home, but then the marked pages had been those of Trousseaux, and now... Instinctively she opened the nearest volume, and shrank at the sight of monumental stones and crosses.