She had not been five minutes in the house before she forgot Zermatt, and Mabel, and Lady Lushington. It is true, she thought of Priscilla, and Priscilla's eyes seemed to haunt her. But even they, with their look of reproach, could not affect the queer peace that had fallen upon her. Mrs Shelf kissed her warmly, not uttering a word of reproach, and Annie stepped with a light and fairy step, and crept to her own room and put on one of her little home dresses--a blue gingham which she often wore and which her uncle loved. She tripped downstairs again in a few minutes, and entered the kitchen and said to Mrs Shelf: "Now I am ready." "Go in by yourself, darling," said Mrs Shelf. "I won't take you. He is in the old room; there is, no one with him. He knows you are here; he knew it the minute you stepped across the threshold. You couldn't deceive him, bless you! Go to him all alone, dearie, and at once." So Annie went. A minute later she was seated by the old man's bedside, and silently her little hand was laid on his. He just turned his head very slowly to look at her. They both felt themselves to be quite alone together except for the presence of the Angel of Death, who, brooding over the house, brooded more deeply over this sacred chamber, with wings held open, ready to spread themselves at any instant, and arms half extended to carry that saint of God to his home in the skies. Mr Brooke had longed for Annie, had imagined her to be by his side in hours of delirium, had awakened to his usual senses a day or two before the end and had discovered her absence; had said no word of reproach with regard to his little Annie, but had missed her with a great heart-hunger. Now she was here. She was his own dear child. To the rest of the world Annie was at that moment a wicked, designing, double-faced, double-natured creature, but to Mr Brooke she was just his wee pet lamb, his darling; the treasure whom God had given him. "You are back, my love," he said when his very feeble voice could speak. "I missed you, my little one." "Yes, I am back," said Annie, and she did that which comforted him most; she laid her head on the pillow beside him, and kissed his cheek, already cold with the dews which precede the moment when the great Angel of Death carries the soul he has released from its prison away.