“Oh, for mercy’s sake, don’t let her come,” almost screamed Mrs. Ried, starting wildly forward.

“Mother, hush!” said Ralph’s voice in solemn sternness.  “It is only Ester.  Where is Abbie?”

“In her room.  What is the matter?  Why do you all act so strangely?  I came to see what caused so much noise.”

And then her eyes and voice were arrested by a group around the sofa; Mr. Ried and Dr. Downing, and stooping over some object which was hidden from her was the man who had been pointed out to her as the great Dr. Archer.  As she looked in terrified amazement, he raised his head and spoke.

“It is as I feared, Mr. Ried.  The pulse has ceased.”

“It is not possible!” And the hollow, awestruck tone in which Mr. Ried spoke can not be described.

And then Ester saw stretched on that sofa a perfectly motionless form, a perfectly pale and quiet face, rapidly settling into the strange solemn calm of death, and that face and form were Mr. Foster’s!  And she stood as if riveted to the spot; stood in speechless, moveless horror and amaze—­and then the swift-coming thoughts shaped themselves into two woe-charged words:  “Oh Abbie!”

What a household was this into which death had so swiftly and silently entered!  The very rooms in which the quiet form lay sleeping, all decked in festive beauty in honor of the bridal morning; but oh! there was to come no bridal.

Ester shrank back in awful terror from the petition that she would go to Abbie.

“I can not—­I can not!” she repeated again and again.  “It will kill her; and oh! it would kill me to tell her.”

Mrs. Ried was even more hopeless a dependence than Ester; and Mr. Ried cried out in the very agony of despair:  “What shall we do?  Is there nobody to help us?”

Then Ralph came forward, grave almost to sternness, but very calm.  “Dr. Downing,” he said, addressing the gentleman who had withdrawn a little from the family group.  “It seems to me that you are our only hope in this time of trial.  My sister and you are sustained, I verily believe, by the same power.  The rest of us seem to have no sustaining power.  Would you go to my sister, sir?”

Dr. Downing turned his eyes slowly away from the calm, moveless face which seemed to have fascinated him, and said simply:  “I will do what I can for Abbie.  It is blessed to think what a Helper she has.  One who never faileth.  God pity those who have no such friend.”

So they showed him up to the brightly-lighted library, and sent a message to the unconscious Abbie.

“Dr. Downing,” she said, turning briskly from the window in answer to Maggie’s summons.  “Whatever does he want of me do you suppose, Maggie?  I’m half afraid of him tonight.  However, I’ll endeavor to brave the ordeal.  Tell Miss Ester to come up to me as soon as she can, and be ready to defend me if I am to receive a lecture.”