Poor creature! beyond her passion and her pride there was some real feeling too. She flung herself at the foot of the bed in a passion of weeping, with loud hysterical shrieks that rang through the house. This brought to her her mother and sister, who, awed by Charlotte’s presence, and by the horror of the catastrophe, had been left in the background, but who now rushed in, and, one at either side, began to pour forth mingled wails for the dead and entreaties to the living. “Take the lady away,” the doctor said, turning to me. Charlotte had not moved. She stood at the end of the bed, with a face like marble, not noticing the noise and tumult near her. She might have been all alone with her dead--so still was she; her eyes fixed upon him, the handkerchief in her hand with which she had been bathing his dead forehead. The blow seemed to have struck her to marble. Sometimes her mouth quivered a little, but she did not shed a tear nor utter a word. I took her hand to lead her away, and then she turned a little toward me with a pitiful look. “We were too late,” she said. “Come away; there is nothing you can do now. Oh, let me take you away; there are others who need you!” “Nothing I can do,” she said dreamily; “nothing anyone can do. Too late! too late!” But she did not move. She was in a region where sounds from without did not reach her. Perhaps, for the moment, it was not even pain she felt, but a wondering awe and solemnity which silenced every thought. “Charlotte,” I cried, being too much moved myself to remember any kind of rule, “where is your father? You have forgotten him! Where has he gone? Your father?” I was alarmed, indeed, at his absence from among the group about poor Colin’s bed. “Ah!” she said, rousing herself with a sigh, that seemed to come from the very bottom of her heart. “My father!” and turned away slowly from the couch and him that lay upon it. The folding-doors were half open, and showed at first only a portion of the chair on which Mr. Campbell had placed himself, and from which it seemed he had never moved. One limp arm and colourless hand hung from the arm of it. His head, sunk upon his breast, was but half visible. For the moment I had no thought but that he had died there, where he sat, and the sight of him added the last horror to the scene. Both dead, father and son, and by one blow!