The storm had gone down by that, and a strange mournful stillness, terrible after the late rioting of the elements, covered all the land. The silence might be felt, and through it they listened eagerly for her sighs, and hoped for the tears that should have come to ease her stricken heart, but all in vain; and watching her they knew at last that the springs of grief within her were frozen, and that the blessed healing waters that can cool the burning fever of despair were not to flow for her. Only a certain curious calm lay on her, killing all outward demonstrations of grief. She spoke to no one, she was hardly, perhaps, at times, aware of the presence of those around her. Dulce's sobs did not rouse her. She showed no symptom of emotion when Sir Christopher bent his white head in inexplicable woe over the form of the man who had been dear to him as his own soul. As she knelt beside the corpse, she moved now and then, and her breath came and went softly, regularly, but her eyes never departed from the face before her, with its closed eyes and sad, solemn smile. Perhaps, in her strange musings, she was trying to follow him in spirit to where he had "Gone before, To that unknown and silent shore" so dimly dreamt of here, because her eyes are gleaming large and clear, and almost unearthly in their brilliance. At first, though somewhat in awe of her, they had sought by tenderest means to draw her from the room. But she had resisted, or rather been utterly deaf to all entreaties, and, kneeling by the bed that held all that she had loved or ever could love, still fed her eager gaze with sight of him, and pressed from time to time his ice-cold hand to her cheeks, her lips, her eyes. Then Sir Mark had admonished them to let her be, and sinking into a chair, with a heavy sigh, had kept her vigil with her. Tall candles gleamed on distant tables. The night wind sighed without; footsteps came and went, and heart-broken sighs and ill-suppressed sobs disturbed the air. The little child he had loved--the poor Boodie--would not be forbidden, and, creeping into the sad room, had stolen to the bedside, and had laid upon his breast a little pallid blossom she had, secretly and alone, braved all the terrors of the dark night to gain, having traversed the quiet garden to pluck it from the tiny plot out there she called her own. She had not been frightened when she saw him, but had stood gazing in some wonder at the indescribably pathetic smile that glorified his lips, after which she had given her hand obediently to Dicky Browne, and had gone back with him to her nursery, content, and far less sad than when she came.