As for Mary, the occupations of the sick-room, and the sudden problems of the hereafter thus thrust upon her, were enough to fill her mind, and make her even comparatively indifferent to the departure of Nello, though it was against her judgment. It was not the hereafter of the spirit, which thus lay death-bound on the verge of the unseen, which occupied her. We must all die, everybody knows; but who thinks it true in their own case until it comes? Mary had known very well that a man much over seventy could not live very much longer; but it was only when her father fell back in his chair unconscious, his body motionless, his mind veiled within blinding mists, that she felt the real weight of all that was to follow. It was for her to act as soon as the breath should be out of his body. She did not trust her younger brother, and she did not know what to do for her elder brother. The crisis had arrived while she was still unprepared. She went down mechanically to see Randolph go away, her eyes seeing many other things more clearly than she saw the two figures actually before her; the man suspicious as usual, and putting no faith in her--the boy in a subdued excitement, his eyes sparkling with the light of novelty and adventure. Randolph had gone into his father’s room that morning, and had walked suspiciously round the bed, making quite sure that the “no change” was true. “I suppose he may last like this for weeks yet?” he said, in a querulous undertone--and yet not so low but that everybody heard it--to the doctor. “Oh, hush, for Heaven’s sake, Randolph! How can you tell that he does not hear?” said Mary. “Pshaw how can he hear?” Randolph replied, turning with a certain contempt from the helpless and powerless frame which lay there making no sign, yet living when it would be so much better that he should die. The awe of such a presence gives way to familiarity and weariness even with the most reverent watcher; but Randolph, though he had no desire to be indecorous, could not help feeling a certain irritation at his father, who balked him by this insensibility just as he had balked him while yet he had all his wits about him. It seemed incredible that this half-dead, half-living condition, which brought everything to a standstill, should not be more or less a man’s own fault.