‘I should think so!’ was Leonora’s private comment, her gaze fixed on the scarlet of Mrs. Dain’s nodding bonnet.

In the little room off the dining-room Leonora dipped pen in ink to write to Arthur.  She wrote the date, and she wrote the word ‘Dear.’  And she could not proceed.  She knew that she could not compose a letter which would be effective.  She went to the window and looked out, biting the pen.  ‘What am I to do?’ she whispered, in terror.  ‘What am I to do?’ Then she saw Ethel running hard down the drive to the front door.

‘Oh, mother!’ The pale girl burst into the room.  ’Father’s done something to himself.  Fred’s come up.  They’re bringing him.’

* * * * *

John Stanway had called at the chemist’s in the Market Place and had given a circumstantial description of an accident to Bran.  It appeared that while Carpenter was washing the waggonette, Bran being loose in the stable-yard, the groom had suddenly slipped the lever of the carriage-jack and the off hind wheel had caught Bran’s hind leg and snapped it like a piece of wood.  The chemist had suggested prussic acid, and John had laughingly answered that perhaps the chemist would be good enough to come up and show them how to administer prussic acid to a dog of Bran’s size in great pain.  John explained that the animal was now fast by the collar, and he had demanded a large dose of morphia, together with a hypodermic instrument.  Having obtained these, and precise instructions for their use, John had hurried away.  It was not till three hours had elapsed that a startling suspicion had disturbed the chemist’s easy mind.  By that time, his preparations completed, John had dropped unconscious from the arm-chair in his office at the works, and Bursley was provided with one of those morbid sensations which more than joy or triumph electrify the stagnant pulses of a provincial town.  Scores of persons followed the cab which conveyed Stanway from the works to his house; and on the route most of the inhabitants seemed to know in advance, by some strange intuition, that the vehicle was coming, and at their windows or at their gates (according to social status) they stood ready to watch it pass.  And even after John had entered his home and had been carried upstairs, and the cab and the policeman had gone, and the doctor had gone, and Fred Ryley and Mr. Mayer, the works manager, had gone, a crowd still remained on the footpath, staring at the gravelled drive and at the front door, silent, patient, implacable.

The doctor had tried hot coffee, artificial respiration, and other remedies, but without the least success, and he had reluctantly departed, solemn for once, leaving four women to understand that there was nothing to do save to wait for the final sigh.  The inactivity was dreadful for them.  They could only look at each other and think, and move to and fro aimlessly in the large bedroom, and light the gas at dusk, and