'Some one must call his father,' whimpered Khâdeeja Khânum; even amid the tempest of grief she was mindful, as ever, of etiquette. 'He must be here to receive the last breath.' So it came to pass that when Jehân returned with Lateefa from cantonments to the evil-smelling courtyard in which his bachelor quarters jostled Dilarâm's balcony, he found the call awaiting him. It had come two hours before, the messenger said, so it might be too late. But it was not. Jehân entering, found the courtyard half full of women. The sun was pouring down into it, showing the stolid yet watchful faces of the circle of those--unveiled by reason of their lower rank--who were gathered round the bed set in the centre. Khôjee and Khâdjee--the former with the tears chasing each other down her cheeks forlornly as she shaded the child with the royal fan and said '_Ameen_' to the old mullah who was chanting the death chapter of the Koran, the latter with unreserved sobbings--crouched at the head. But Noormahal neither sobbed nor said '_Ameen_.' Half on the ground, half on the low bed, she lay still, her face hidden about the child's feet. She did not stir even when Jehân's voice rose in unrestrained--and for the time being sincere--lamentation, in piteous upbraidings of all and everything. Why had he not been told? Why had he not been sent for sooner? Lateefa, who had entered with him, gave a quick look of absolute dislike and contempt at his principal. 'Best thank God they sent for thee at all,' he muttered as he passed to the head of the cot. He had gibed and laughed at the tragedy till then, treating it--as he treated his kites--as a mere nothingness. But this--above all, old Khôjee's forlorn face--struck home. 'Best thank God they let thee be in time to claim thy son,' he muttered again, adding, as he bent his keen face closer to the child's, 'and thou art but just in time!' But just in time! Even as he spoke one of the stolid watching women nodded and looked at her neighbour interrogatively. The neighbour looked at the face on the cushions, and nodded also. So, as if by common consent, the first faint whimper which heralds the true wailing began. Khôjee paused in an '_Ameen_' with a gasp, Khâdjee let her sobs grow into a cry. But Noormahal neither stirred, nor uttered sound. Only as she lay over the child's feet a little shiver ran through her limbs as if she, too, were passing from the cold world. An hour afterwards she was still lying so, face downwards, unrewarding, though they had moved her to the bed where Khâdeeja Khânum had spent so many hours in making tinsel caps. One of them, which she had made for Sa'adut's four years, four months, and four days' reception into the church of the Clement and Merciful, was on the child's head now; for the tenders of the dead had prepared him for his burial.