They had been walking slowly, Brocklehurst close to the hedge, he, Graham, in the middle of the road, when the terrified horses had come dashing round the corner, the drag swaying violently behind them, one of the reins hanging broken and useless. He remembered jumping to one side. His foot had slipped on something, and he had fallen. The dust, the noise, a wheel just touching his coat as he rolled himself out of the way.... He knew now that Brocklehurst had sprung at the horses’ heads, had given him, it might be, that one extra moment.... And now it was all over. Their long afternoon in the boat; on the rocks; their little act of pagan worship;――all that had been _this_ afternoon, and it was over. He was walking, a few steps behind the others, up the avenue toward the house. X Night at last. Every one at length gone away; everything arranged; the house still and solemn. His father had left him alone for a little with the dead boy. At last!... His sorrow, which before the strangers he had kept swallowed down, he need hide no longer. There was no one to hear, no one to see. And he knelt beside the bed and stroked the smooth cold cheek. He kissed the cold mouth and stroked the soft dark hair from which all stain had been washed; and he put his arms about the body. And he remembered the boy as he had stood before him that afternoon in all his wonderful beauty. His tears fell fast and blindingly. The sobs rising to his throat almost choked him. XI Day followed day. Brocklehurst had been buried in the village churchyard; his father and one of his brothers (all of his family who had come over) were returned home again; the blinds were drawn up; the quiet flow of life, so harshly and unexpectedly interrupted, had dropped back into its accustomed channel; only for one boy a light had gone out for ever from the sky; a glory and a beauty, as he had known them once, had vanished from the world. All day long he tried to be alone, tried to avoid his father; and whenever an opportunity presented itself he would escape to his own room or to some solitary place out of doors. It was almost as if he were afraid of human companionship, afraid of the sound of his own voice. And a curious unwillingness to mention Harold’s name, or to allude to him in any way whatever, seemed to have taken possession of him, though he spent daily a longer and longer time at the boy’s grave, remaining there for hours, until his father, who knew of these visits, grew anxious for his health and wished to take him away from home, offered to take him abroad――France, Italy, Greece――anywhere he liked. But Graham pleaded so desperately to be allowed to stay where he was that Mr. Iddesleigh had not the heart to refuse him――feared, indeed, that in his present state of mind it might do him more harm than good.