All eyes were sadly fixed on the two distressed young people, but they made no answer, and the affecting scene now terminated with these last few words-- "If by any kind of chance it happens I'm given a year or two more after all, I'll take no more part in worldly matters. I'll leave things to you, Andrew, just the same as if I was gone. If I linger on, a chastened man, taking for a wee while an interest in your welfare, that's all that will be left to me--that's the whole I look forward to." Andrew's sorrowful eyes replied, "And that's more than we do," as he silently shook his father's hand. Then the company tiptoed sadly out of the sick-room. CHAPTER VIII Of all the anticipatory mourners, the most demonstrative was the sympathetic widow. She could barely control her emotion till she reached the drawing-room. There she broke down quite. "Oh, Mary, Mary!" she sobbed. They were alone together--Mary, commonly styled Miss Walkingshaw, and she. The exemplary spinster was likewise distressed, but in a calmer manner, as became a lady who had shared Heriot's Spartan upbringing. "Whisht, whisht," said she. "He'll maybe get over it yet." "No--no, he won't! That horrible beast will see that he doesn't!" Miss Walkingshaw started nervously. "You're not meaning the nurse?" "I mean that--ugh!--that Andrew!" A bright pink spot appeared in each of Miss Walkingshaw's cheeks. But the widow was too agitated to observe either them or the horrified stare with which she greeted this outburst. "I believe he would _kill_ him to spite me!" "Madge!" said the exemplary spinster in a voice which for the first time reminded her of Heriot's. Mrs. Dunbar collected herself. Doubtless she realized the injustice she was doing that excellent man. "I am sorry, Mary," she said gently. "I don't know what I'm saying. I admire Andrew as much as any one. I didn't mean it. It was only that I felt I _had_ to blame some one for this terrible sorrow." Her friend continued to look at her with decidedly diminished warmth. "Our religion forbids us--" she began austerely; but the sympathetic widow hurriedly anticipated her. "I know, I know, dear--so it does. How true, Mary; oh, how true! How sweet of you to remind me." She turned her large black eyes, glistening pathetically, full upon her friend; but for some reason Mary continued to regard her with a new and curious expression. A trace of suspicion seemed to be among its ingredients. Meanwhile her slandered nephew was in the library with his two elder sisters. The gas was now lit and the storm curtained out. Mrs. Ramornie and Andrew talked in decorously lowered voices; Mrs. Donaldson more loudly, and almost more airily, as became her dashing appearance and smart reputation. Yet she too had a nice sense of the solemnity of the occasion, and they forgave her elevated voice, since they knew several people of rank who talked like that. "An irretrievable loss," Andrew was saying; "an irretrievable loss."