"Ay. It was so queer to feel no contact myself with the terror, and to see poor Jem in the throes of the struggle. And he put me back, and went to face him first." Here Guy faltered, and almost broke down. "He won the battle. But then, on the bridge--you'll say I was faint, and felt the dead weight of Jem--there was nothing; but, well--_people talk of the powers of the air_. I could not stir--an inch. Then Jem yelled out, and I got loose, and the bridge cracked--no wonder!--I woke up here by degrees. I knew when you came and held my hand, and when Rawdie licked my face; but I couldn't do a thing. I had to _stop_. And now to be alive--and alone!" "Thank God, my boy, it's all over." "Yes, I thank God," said Guy. Then he added, quietly, "It doesn't matter how much of it has been what you call natural, or what caused the horror that poor Jem burlesqued. I had _to fight_. It's true enough-- all temptations are common to man. I might have been as he is. Now, Cuthbert, let the rest be silence. I shall never speak of these things again. Believe me, they _are_ all over. But, a thousand times I thank you." He looked up, and Cuthbert saw the conflict and the victory, both in his face. The shadow, if shadow it could be called, was the fading out of life of poor Jem Outhwaite. Less ill at first than Guy, he had no vitality to resist the shock and chill he had received. He had one word more to say about the crossing of the bridge, when his poor feeble soul had put forth its one flower of courage, and he had tried to take the post of danger. "Ay, sir," he said, in his cracked voice, to all the vicar's words of comfort and hope. But, when Guy came at the very last to see him, he looked up in his face with a smile that was not foolish, and said-- "We thrawed t' owd gen'leman in to t' watter, _not he we_." His mother said that now her poor lad was safe, she could lie in her grave; but she never could have left him behind her. He was laid in the new churchyard, next to the grave of the old squire; and both, all barriers thrown down, awaited the consecrating words that would join their resting-places to those of their kindred and neighbours who rested in peace. Guy and Godfrey stood together at the head of his grave. Godfrey, through all the time of suspense, had fallen into the way of bringing all his hopes and fears to Constancy. She had hunted him out to take exercise, just as she trotted Rawdie, who had been a devoted nurse to his master, daily round the garden, and sacrificed the peace of the stable-cat's life, that he might have the refreshment of chasing her up a tree. Now, after the funeral, as Guy lingered to look at the progress made in the church restoration since he had last seen it, Godfrey went back and found her, as he hoped, taking Rawdie for a walk on the lawn.