The pen dropped from her fingers, and she pushed her chair back from the writing-table and went over to the fireplace and lay down on the sofa. The day was cold, and Mrs. Ogilvie shivered and drew a cover over her feet. 'When this is over,' she thought, 'I will ring and have the fire lighted.' She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and calculated deliberately how long the paroxysm would probably last. She had always regarded pain as an animate thing which had to be fought with, and she had never failed in courage when she met it, nor moaned when, as now for the first time, she was beaten by it. The clock seemed to tick more leisurely to-day, and the time passed very slowly; there is a loneliness about suffering which makes the hours drag heavily. Once she buried her face for a moment in the sofa cushions, and her bands clenched the cover and crumpled the delicate satin between her fingers. Her head sank lower, like a wounded bird that ruffles up the dust; she moved convulsively amongst the cushions. It was a grim fight with pain that she was making; she did not give in easily, but the odds were unequal. Mrs. Ogilvie was in the hands of an unsparing foe. She was conquered, but afterwards, when she lay quite still, there was a look of defiance in her attitude. Her maid, coming in and finding her sleeping, glanced at the blinds and wondered if she dared lower them, for the sun was shining brilliantly into the room now, and its beams were resting full and strong on the figure on the sofa. It was something about the position of the auburn head--something twisted and unnatural in the attitude of the recumbent form--that caused the woman to cry out suddenly and sharply, with a vibrating cry that seemed to set everything in the room jingling. No one heard her at first, and she opened the window and called aloud for help; for there was a sound of horses' hoofs upon the gravel, and Peter rode up with Jane to the door. 'Mrs. Ogilvie must have been dead an hour,' the village doctor said when he came; and then he sent the weeping girl and poor, white-faced, broken-hearted Peter out of the room. Neither of them could believe the horrible news; they turned to each other, taking hands, as children do in their grief, and Jane went back and with a sob stooped down and imprinted a long kiss on the dead woman's brow. 'She must have died just as she was writing her morning letters,' said Peter, as he glanced at the writing-table with its litter of notes and papers. 'Perhaps it would be as well to lock up anything that is lying about,' said the doctor; 'it is customary to do so. Or your lawyer--who, I understand, is in the house--could come in, I suppose, and put away jewels, etc.' He handed Peter the litter of notes and papers on the writing-table.