What stopped the words?--What spring of life suddenly failed?--Was it the shadow, after all, no longer shadowy, but a presence, a reality? Mrs Miles, running to him with a cry, caught him in her faithful arms, and held him by an almost supernatural strength from falling forward on his face. "William, William!" The servants in the kitchen heard the cry though he did not, and flocked in, Anthony was sent for, another messenger despatched to Underham for the doctor. All the doctors in the world could do him no good, but Mrs Miles would not believe it as she sat by the bed where he was lying. "He was so well, Anthony, all the morning. And I think Marion's wedding made him remember our own, for do you know what he said just before? `We have been very happy together, Hannah,' he said. I must tell him when he is better that I did not say half enough." I think the words have been told by this time like so many other of those unspoken words which wait for our utterance, but he did not hear them then. No more sounds apparently reached his ear where he lay silent and motionless while the days passed slowly by, carrying his moments with them, until the last came, when they scarcely expected it, as quiet and gentle as his life had been throughout. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. When death brings other departures besides the one that is greatest, a hundred pangs may be added to its sadness. There is the leaving the old home, the uprooting of old ties,--a shock meets you at every turn. Mrs Miles felt so sharply the fear of these added troubles, that she implored Anthony with a wistful entreaty he could not resist to let her remain at Thorpe, and to move, at least for the present, into a house they called "the cottage," about half a mile from the Vicarage. He agreed reluctantly, and because it seemed cruelty to his mother to oppose her at such a time. He himself disliked staying in the place, with their home no longer theirs; and his sorrow for his father was so great that he had almost an impatient longing to escape from a neighbourhood which was absolutely made up of associations. The Squire forgot all his little animosities with Anthony Miles, while the awe of standing by his old friends grave was fresh in his mind; but Anthony shrank from his homely attempts at consolation, as a man shrinks from the reopening of a wound. Even Winifred, whose sympathy was at once strong and delicate, found it difficult to show it. The little barrier which had reared itself between them did not fall away at her kind, womanly touch. Anthony was inclined to reject an attempt to share his sorrow,--almost to resent it. He wanted to escape, to try his wings, to make a career, and Mrs Miles promised to go with him to London; but her heart failed her, poor thing, whenever the time came, and he gave way to her wishes, meaning his own to have their way by and by.