"In the garden," said Diana, breathlessly; and, taking Lady Lucy's hand, she guided her. Beside the dying man stood Sir James Chide, Muriel Colwood, and the old butler. Sir James looked up, started at the sight of Lady Lucy, and went to meet her. "You are just in time," he said, tenderly; "but he is going fast. We have done all we could." Ferrier was now lying on the grass, his head supported. Lady Lucy sank beside him. "John!" she called, in a voice of anguish--"John--dear, dear friend!" But the dying man made no sign. And as she lifted his hand to her lips--the love she had shown him so grudgingly in life speaking now undisguised through her tears and her despair--Sir James watched the gentle passage of the last breaths, and knew that all was done--the play over and the lights out. CHAPTER XIX A sad hurrying and murmuring filled the old rooms and passages of Beechcote. The village doctor had arrived, and under his direction the body of John Ferrier had been removed from the garden to the library of the house. There, amid Diana's books and pictures, Ferrier lay, shut-eyed and serene, that touch of the ugly and the ponderous which in life had mingled with the power and humanity of his aspect entirely lost and drowned in the dignity of death. Chide and the doctor were in low-voiced consultation at one end of the room; Lady Lucy sat beside the body, her face buried in her hands; Marsham stood behind her. Brown, the butler, noiselessly entered the room, and approached Chide. "Please sir, Lord Broadstone's messenger is here. He thinks you might wish him to take back a letter to his lordship." Chide turned abruptly. "Lord Broadstone's messenger?" "He brought a letter for Mr. Ferrier, sir, half an hour ago." Chide's face changed. "Where is the letter?" He turned to the doctor, who shook his head. "I saw nothing when we brought him in." Marsham, who had overheard the conversation, came forward. "Perhaps on the grass--" Chide--pale, with drawn brows--looked at him a moment in silence. Marsham hurried to the garden and to the spot under the yews, where the death had taken place. Round the garden chairs were signs of trampling feet--the feet of the gardeners who had carried the body. A medley of books, opened letters, and working-materials lay on the grass. Marsham looked through them; they all belonged to Diana or Mrs. Colwood. Then he noticed a cushion which had fallen beside the chair, and a corner of newspaper peeping from below it. He lifted it up. Below lay Broadstone's open letter, in its envelope, addressed first in the Premier's well-known handwriting to "The Right Honble. John Ferrier, M.P."--and, secondly, in wavering pencil, to "Lady Lucy Marsham, Tallyn Hall." Marsham turned the letter over, while thoughts hurried through his brain. Evidently Ferrier had had time to read it. Why that address to his mother?--and in that painful hand--written, it seemed, with the weakness of death already upon him?