The men shut the door reverently as the doctor took her away, leaving him there whom no one dared to touch, while they stood outside talking in whispers. Mr. St. John, still and cold, kept possession of the place. He had gone last night, when Cicely saw him, to fetch those relics of his Hester, which he had kept for so many years in his room; but, in his feeble state, had been so long searching before he could find them, that sleep had overtaken Cicely, and she had not heard him stumbling downstairs again with his candle. Heaven knows what fancy it was that had sent him to seek his wife's cloak and hat; his mind had got confused altogether with trouble and weakness, and the shock of uprootal; and then he had sat down again with a smile, with her familiar garments ready for her, to wait through the night till Hester came. What hour or moment it was no one could tell; but Hester, or some other angel, had come for him according to his expectation, and left nothing but the case and husk of him sitting, as he had sat waiting for her, with her cloak upon his knees. "I am going to telegraph for her sister," said the doctor, coming out with red eyes after all was done that could be done, both for the living and the dead. "Of course you will send and stop the people from coming; there can be no sale to-day." "Of course," said the auctioneer. "The young lady wouldn't believe it, my man tells me. I must get them off at once, or they'll get drinking. They're all upset like a parcel of women--what with finding him, and what with seeing the young lady. Poor thing! and, so far as I can learn, very badly left?" "Left!" cried the doctor; there was derision in the very word. "They are not _left_ at all; they have not a penny in the world. Poor St. John, we must not say a word now against him, and there is not much to say. He got on with everybody. He did his duty by rich and poor. There was never a better clergyman, always ready when you called him, early or late; more ready for nothing," the doctor added remorsefully, "than I am for my best paying patients. We might have done more to smooth his way for him, perhaps, but he never could take care of money or do anything to help himself; and now they'll have to pay for it, these two poor girls."