“Harlot! Strumpet! So this is what has been changing thee! Thy brother dead in France, and thou in the arms of this German! May God punish thee! May thy brother’s spirit follow thee day and night and destroy thee! Curse thee! Curse thee! May the curse of God....” The old man’s voice chokes in his throat. His face changes colour, and he totters and falls. Before Mona is aware of it some of the farmhands are in the house picking the old man up. She had left the outer door open, and they had heard her father’s cries. They carry him back to bed, limp and unconscious. Mona stands for some moments as if smitten by a blow on the brain. A horror of great darkness has fallen on her. When she recovers self-possession she looks round for Oskar. He has gone. _SEVENTH CHAPTER_ The old farmer died, without speaking, a few days after his second seizure. Mona watched with him constantly. Sometimes she prayed, with all the fervour of her soul, that he might recover consciousness. But the strange thing was that sometimes she found herself hoping that he might never do so. When the end came she was overwhelmed with remorse, but still struggling to defend herself. It was early morning, and she was alone with him at the last. In the wild burstings of affection, mingled with self-reproach, she cried: “I couldn’t help it, father. I couldn’t help it.” They buried her father at Kirk Patrick in the family grave of the Craines, which was close to the German quarter. Her relations from all parts of the island came “to see the old man home.” There were uncles and aunts and cousins to the third and fourth degree, most of them quite unknown to her. When the service was over they went back to the farm-house, by permission of the camp authorities, to hear the will read by the vicar. It had been made shortly after the death of Robbie and consisted of one line only: “_I leave all I have to my dear daughter._” The uncles and aunts and cousins, who had no claim on the dead man, were shocked at his selfishness. “Is there no legacy to anybody, parson?” “None.” “Not so much as a remembrance?” “Nothing. Everything goes to Mona.” “We’ll leave it with her, then,” they said, and rose to go. As they passed out of the house Mona heard one of them say to another: “It will be enough to make the man turn in his grave, though, if the farm goes to a Boche some day.” That night, sitting late over a dying fire, Mona overhears a group of men and boys talking on “the street,” outside. They are her servants on the farm. Having heard her father’s denunciation of her on Christmas Eve they have since been circulating damaging reports, and now they are busy with their own plans for the future. “She has killed the old man, that’s the long and short of it.” “So it is.” “I’m working no more for a woman that’s done a thing like that.” “Me neither.”