"Thanks, Rob," said Wythie, quietly. "We know the poem." The little procession of three filed down the narrow stairs, stepping slowly and carefully in the dusk. The house was absolutely still; Prue had evidently not come in, and perhaps Polly had fallen asleep with Hortense, Wythie suggested. There was a faint glow in the dining-room from the fire burning low on the hearth. By its light they saw Mr. Grey lying on the couch as they had left him, and Polly's little figure drooping over Hortense in her arms, sound asleep in Prue's outgrown chair. "The palace of the Sleeping Beauty," whispered Rob, thinking it a pretty picture. "I can't bear to disturb your father, but we must get tea," whispered her mother back. Wythie struck a light and Polly stirred, straightened herself, looked, startled, around the room, and then smiled at Rob. "I didn't know where I was," she said, running to her idol. "Your father woke up and said something quick, and I woke up, too, but when I went to him he was asleep, so then Hortense and I went to sleep again." "What did papa say, Polly?" asked Wythie, with a sudden fear. Her mother had crossed to the couch, and knelt beside it. She took her husband's face in her hands, and something in her attitude brought her girls to her instantly. Mrs. Grey laid the beloved head back on the pillow and raised her face to Wythie and Rob without a sound. "Mardy!" cried the girls together, dropping on their knees beside her. There was no need of question nor of answer; no need of the frantic pressure of the motionless heart. No need of Rob's rushing to meet Prue, who opened the door at that moment, nor of bidding her hasten for her life for Dr. Fairbairn. For they knew, the stricken wife and daughters, that Sylvester Grey had slipped painlessly, quietly away from them, and from the joy of the triumph of his loving efforts for them, into the joy that should never end. CHAPTER THIRTEEN ITS DANGER The days that followed its bereavement passed like a dream over the little grey house. There is no preparation for grief; Mr. Grey's death came upon those who had loved him as if there had been no warning of the danger in which he lived, and, as they met the necessary claims and performed the hard tasks their sorrow laid upon them, it was impossible for them to realize that it was the dear dreamer whom they were laying away to dreamless sleep up on the hill, under the great elms of Fayre's old graveyard. But when these confused days were past and the tall, thin figure no longer cast its shadow over the old doorway, nor the nervous step fell on bewildered ears, unconsciously straining to hear it, Sylvester Grey's wife and daughters began dimly to realize that he had gone away. Of the three girls the loss and loneliness was bitterest to Rob, but it was she who met it most bravely, resolving to be, indeed, to her mother the "son Rob" her "Patergrey" had always called her.