He left them there. He carried his bitterness into the drawing-room on the other side of the passage. . . . It was very quiet there. Through the bow window floated the perfume of the bed of stocks. In the corner stood the piano. He had often listened to his mother playing at night when he was in bed. He loved her to play him to sleep. The piano was shut; and the shut piano seemed to him symbolical. All the music and all the beauty that had been there had gone out of the house. The house was an empty shell. Like a dry chrysalis. Like a coffin. There, on the hearthrug, where he had crawled as a child, he lay down and cried. CHAPTER X THRENODY I FROM this emotional maelstrom the current of Edwin’s life flowed into a strange peace. It seemed that the catastrophe of Mrs. Ingleby’s death had taken the Halesby household by surprise and stunned it so thoroughly that it would never recover its normal consciousness. Edwin’s father, who had now returned to the ordinary round of business, was still dazed and puzzled, and very grey. Their servant, a young woman with an exaggerated sense of the proprieties, or perhaps a dread of living alone in such a gloomy house, had given notice. Only Aunt Laura, to Edwin’s shame, showed the least capacity for dealing with the situation. However few of the graces may have fallen to her lot, she was certainly not lacking in the domestic virtues. When the maid departed with her tin trunk and many tearful protestations of her devotion to the memory of the dear mistress, Aunt Laura turned up her sleeves and took possession of the kitchen, and Mr. Ingleby, who had gloomily anticipated a domestic wilderness, found that in spite of the maid’s defection, ambrosial food appeared before him like manna from heaven, the only difference being that Uncle Albert, who could not be permitted for one moment to remain a bachelor, took his meals with the family. The relation between Edwin and Aunt Laura was still difficult. She could not forget—and he could not withdraw—the bitter things that had been said on that most mournful day, though her native good humour, which was profuse and blustery like the rest of her, made it difficult for her to maintain an attitude of injured benignance. Even Edwin had to admit that she was a good cook; but the excellence of her food was qualified by her incessant chatter and her nervous laugh. Edwin simply couldn’t stick them; but it amazed him to find that Uncle Albert evidently found them cheerful and reassuring. Indeed, it was possibly one of the reasons why he had fallen in love with her, being a man who resembled her in nothing and whose enthusiasms could never get him beyond a couple of words and a giggle.