"We've had our breakfast," he explained. "You won't mind, I hope. We knew you'd be very tired, so we kept the house quiet. I hope you've had a good night, and are feeling all the better. Now I must leave you. We're busy getting out the country orders. You can help yourself, I know." And he disappeared through the frosted glass door into the shop. He came back half an hour later, just as Ralph was finishing his breakfast, with a telegram in his hand. "I hope there ain't no bad news," he said, handing Ralph the brick-coloured envelope. Ralph tore it open in a moment, and his face grew ashen. He did not speak for several seconds, but continued to stare with unblinking eyes at the pencilled words. "Is it bad news?" William questioned at length, unable to restrain his curiosity and his anxiety any longer. Ralph raised his eyes and looked at him. "Mother's dead," he answered, in a whisper; and then the telegram slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the floor. William picked it up and read it. "Your mother found dead in bed. Send instructions _re_ disposal of remains." "They might have worded the message a little less brutally," William said at length. "Officialism is nothing if not brutal," Ralph said bitterly. Then the two men looked at each other in silence. William had little difficulty in guessing what was passing through Ralph's mind. "If I were in his place," he reflected, "what should I be thinking? Should I like my mother to be put into a parish coffin and buried in a pauper's grave?" William spoke at length. "You'd like your mother and father to sleep together?" he questioned. Ralph's lips trembled, but he did not speak. "The world's been terribly rough on you," William went on, "but you'll come into your own maybe by and by." "I shall never get father and mother back again," Ralph answered chokingly. "We oughtn't to want them back again," William said; "they're better off." "I wish I was better off in the same way," Ralph answered, with a rush of tears to his eyes. "She held on, you see, till you came back to her," William said, after a long pause; "then, when she got her heart's desire, she let go." "Dear old mother!" "And now that she's asleep, you'll want her to rest with your father." "But I've no money." "I'll be your banker as long as you like. Charge you interest on the money, if you'll feel easier in your mind. Only don't let the money question trouble you just now." Ralph grasped William's hand in silence. Of all the people he had known in St. Goram, this comparative stranger was his truest friend and neighbour. So it came to pass that Mary Penlogan had such a funeral as she herself would have chosen, and in the grave of her husband her children laid her to rest. People came from far and near to pay their last tribute of respect. Even Sir John Hamblyn sent his steward to represent him. He was too conscience-stricken to come himself.