"Yes--thank God. Faded out at four o’clock yesterday morning. Flickered out just the same as a night-light flickers out. Wavers and shakes--then steadies down again--then gets brighter than ever--then grows dim--slowly, slowly, till there’s nought but a bead of fire left. And then a flash, and then--gone. And your eyes think it’s there still; but it isn’t." "Dear Bartley, I’m so sorry for you." "Are you? But I know you are. Not many else will be--not many but me and my Aunt Susan. She’s torn to the heart. I couldn’t stand no more of it." "I’ll see your aunt to-morrow. I’ll see her to-day." "She’ll thank you. Make it to-morrow. My dear mother wasn’t a very much sought after woman--too wise for that, I expect. But you could comfort her sister. Nobody else will trouble about her." "To-night I shall go down." "The funeral’s on Tuesday. Would you put her to the west where the big holly tree is, or under the sunny wall where the slates of the Moses family all stand?" "She’d have liked to be buried by her husband. She told me so." "I know; but ’tisn’t convenient. He lies at Honiton, and ’twould cost a King’s ransom to take her there. But I asked her almost the last thing, and she thought and shook her head. Past caring then." "Me and David will be at the funeral--I can promise for myself, and I’m pretty sure he’ll go." "D’you think you could get Rhoda to come? D’you think I might go so far as to ask her to come?" "I’m sure she’d go if she thought it would give anybody any pleasure." "Not pleasure exactly. You might almost say ’twas business more than pleasure. Don’t think I’m hard-hearted and all that sort of thing; but when you’re in love like I am--everything--even the funeral of his own mother--is used by a man to his advantage, if it can be. To feel like I feel for Rhoda makes me as hard as a millstone for everything else. I want her at the funeral; because if she sees me there burying my dear mother, it may bring a pinch of softness to her. I’ve planned to get her there if ’tis possible." Margaret stared at him in wonder. "Don’t think me daft. I’m suffering enough; but ’tis man’s way to look on ahead. And I can’t look on ahead into nothing. I’ve grown to feel to Rhoda that she’s got to marry me. And yet ’tis idle to pretend that I’ve much right to be hopeful. What’s the best news about her?" "There’s no news, unless her long, lonely walks be news. She must think of something when she takes ’em. She can’t talk to the dogs all the time. Her mind can’t be empty, can it?" "Certainly not," Mr. Crocker assured her. "She must be travelling over something in her brain, if ’tis only the joneys on the mantel-shelf in your parlour. But it isn’t about me and Canada she thinks, I reckon. Canada, perhaps, but not me." "I will say this: there’s no unfriendliness in her. I never hear her speak a word against any man, bar William Screech. And I go in hopes that she’ll forgive even him and Dorcas."