“The nights are still cold,” he said drawing a chair towards the hearth, and warming his thin white hands; “May is but a treacherous month in spite of the good things the poets say of it. I understand that your father’s illness was caused by a chill,” he added, glancing kindly at Ralph. “He caught cold one night when they sent for him down in the village,” said Ralph, tears starting to his eyes. “He was called up at two o’clock to see a man who was dying: there was an east wind, he said it seemed to go right through him. But then you know he had been very much troubled because of his losses; for the last ten days he had scarcely eaten anything, and had slept badly.” Sir Matthew paced the room restlessly, but when he spoke his voice was bland and calm. “A noble end!” he said, “dying in harness like that; carrying comfort to the dying and then lying down upon his own death-bed; a very noble end.” Something in the tone of this speech grated on Ralph, he shrank a little closer to the lawyer. “Why do I hate him?” thought the boy. “He’s going to send me to Winchester with his own money, I ought to like him, but I can’t--I can’t!” At that moment old Mrs. Grice appeared at the door asking to speak with Mr. Marriott. He followed her into the hall returning in a minute or two and approaching Ralph. “My boy,” he said, laying a kindly hand on his shoulder, “if you want to see your father’s face again it must be now.” Together they went up the dimly lighted staircase to the room overhead, Sir Matthew following slowly and with reluctance, a strange expression lurking about the corners of his mouth. Many thoughts passed through his mind as he stood looking down upon the still features of his dead friend; if the pale lips could have spoken he well knew they might have reproached him; and yet it was less painful to him to look at the stern face of the dead, than to watch the grief of the little lad as, through fast falling tears he gazed for the last time on his father’s face. It was a relief to him when the old lawyer drew the boy gently away, and persuaded him to return to the study fire. “I will be good to his son,” thought Sir Matthew as he looked once more at the silent form. “I will make it up to Ralph. He shall have the education his father would have given him. And then he must shift for himself, I shall have done my duty, and he must sink or swim. The very sight of him annoys me, but it will be only for a few years, and, meantime, I must put up with it.” So Ralph for the last time slept in the only home he had ever known, and woke the next day to endure as best he might all the last painful ceremonies through which it was necessary that he should bear his part. When the funeral was over he left Sir John Tresidder to talk with the lawyer and Sir Matthew, and drew Mab away into a sheltered nook of the walled kitchen garden where stood a rabbit-hutch.