In the little front-room supper was spread, and a fire was burning. Alexander pushed her gently into a low wicker chair, and knelt to unlace her boots, and when he took them off he rubbed her feet. "Was there no straw in the cart? I told him to have plenty. Let me push you nearer to the fire." "Alexander, can't I go and see him?" "When you have had some food. Here's Mrs. Spencer with the coffee. No, sit still. I'll serve you." But for the small homely sounds of cup against saucer and knife on plate, Theresa sat, and Alexander moved between her and the table, in a silence that held no discomfort. Suddenly she looked up, frowning. "I can't feel unhappy. I wish I could, but I seem to have come into the very home of peace! Are you unhappy?" "It seems as if I've killed a friend," he said. "No, no, not you." The light fluttered from her face. "I think, if you look back far enough, I did it." "You!" She turned to look into the fire, and from the stillness of the room she could tell how fiercely he was thinking, and though she, too, had much to think of, she found herself waiting on his thoughts. But when he spoke it was to say with a quickness that, made him rough: "Would you like a message sent to Mr. Morton? I could send that lad early in the morning." He saw the blank widening of her eyes. "No, thank you." The faculties of her mind rushed together, and cleared themselves, and even while she was thinking, "Shall I tell him?" she was saying calmly: "I am not going to marry Mr. Morton." "Oh!" There was a certain foolishness in his tone. "I hadn't heard." The silence was now busy and thick with thoughts. She went upstairs to make herself fit to look upon her dead, and, taking her lighted candle, she entered the room where he was lying. She had no fear of him. She went and turned back the sheet as though she only went to rouse him in the morning, and the familiarity of his striped flannel garment was like a mockery of death. How could he be dead when his thin hands protruded from the wristbands she had mended? But he was dead, for he neither opened his eyes nor smiled at her. She looked down, waiting. "I'm here," she said aloud, but very low--"I'm here, Father." But he was not there to answer her. The lips which had smiled in dying had fallen stern, and the cheeks she kissed were of a bitter cold. She sank to her knees and laid her hands on his. "Well, we loved each other, didn't we?" she said, and her swollen tears fell into the lips parted to speak to him. "We loved each other, didn't we?"