Nestley, starting to his feet, bent over the bed, and tearing open the squire's shirt, put his hand on his heart--it had ceased to beat. "He is dead," he said, in a coldly professional manner, "that last effort killed him." "Dead!" echoed Patience, who was leaning against the curtains with staring eyes and a white terrified face. "Yes--dead," repeated Dr. Larcher gravely. "We can do no good now," and followed by Reginald and Dick he left the room, wondering in his own heart what the old man had meant by pointing at the desk while pronouncing Blake's name. The melancholy news was conveyed to the terrified women downstairs, and shortly afterwards everyone departed, leaving the inmates of the Grange alone with its dead master. Una and Miss Cassy, stunned by the suddenness of the event, retired early to bed, and Jellicks, with the help of Patience, laid the corpse out on the bed ready for the undertaker. Nestley went to his own room and solaced himself with brandy; Patience remained by the side of the corpse to watch it during the night, and over all the house there hung a shadow of fear and dread which invested the place with awesome terror. And that which once held the soul of Randal Garsworth lay on the bed under the heavily-draped canopy--a still white-faced form with the dead hands crossed on the dead breast, and on the white lips a terrible smile. Candles burned on each side of the body with a sickly light, and a woman with her face buried in her hands knelt praying for the dead man's soul. "_Oh God who art the Judge of all have mercy upon the soul of this wretched man_." Not a breath of air in the vastness of the room, no sound, no blaze of light--only the pale glimmer of the candles hollowing out a gulf of luminous light in the sombre blackness of the brooding night. "_Oh God who art all powerful and just, let not the soul of this man suffer for the sins of his life, for the mind which should have ruled the soul was a wreck and incapable of so ruling_." Was there not a sneer upon the still features of the dead man at this prayer for his misspent, useless life--he that despised prayer and only looked upon his soul as useful to inhabit a new body so that he could make it an instrument by which to enjoy the sensual things of this earth. Midnight, and the wind is rising--with querulous voice it sweeps through the leafless trees and whistles through the chinks and crannies of the old house, making the dim light of the candles flicker and flare in the dense darkness. No prayer now sounds from the thin lips of the watcher, for a sudden thought has darted through her brain. "_The letter for my son--I must get it from the desk_."