‘But look here, Nora,’ John began.

‘Yes, father, upstairs,’ said Rose, cutting him short.

Preoccupied with the cumbrous weight of Meshach’s shoulders, John could not maintain the discussion; he hesitated, and then Carpenter moved towards the stairs.  The small dangling body seemed to say:  ’I am indifferent, but it is perhaps as well that you have done arguing.’

’Run over to Dr. Hawley’s, and ask him to come across at once, John instructed Carpenter, when they had steered Uncle Meshach round the twist of the staircase, and insinuated him through a doorway, and laid him at length, in his overcoat and his muffler and his quaint boots, on Ethel’s virginal bed.

‘But has the doctor come home, Jack?’ Leonora inquired.

‘Of course he has,’ said John.  ’He drove up with Dain, and they passed us at Shawport.  Didn’t you hear me call out to them?’

‘Oh yes,’ she agreed.

Then John, hatless but in his ulster, and the women, hooded and shawled, drew round the bed; but Ethel and Milly stood at the foot.  The inanimate form embarrassed them all, made them feel self-conscious and afraid to meet one another’s eyes.

‘Better loosen his things,’ said Leonora, and Rose’s fingers were instantly at work to help her.

Uncle Meshach was white, rigid, and stonecold; the stiff ‘Myatt’ jaw was set; the eyes, wide open, looked upwards, and strangely outwards, in a fixed stare.  And his audience thought, as they gazed in a sort of foolish astonishment at the puny, grotesque, and unfamiliar thing, ’Is this really Uncle Meshach?’ John lifted the wrist and felt for the pulse, but he could distinguish no beat, and he shook his head accordingly.  ‘Try the heart, mother,’ Rose suggested, and Leonora, after penetrating beneath garment after garment, placed her hand on Meshach’s icy and tranquil breast.  And she too shook her head.  Then John, with an air of finality, took out his gold repeater and when he had polished the glass he held it to Uncle Meshach’s parted lips.  ’Can you see any moisture on it?’ he asked, taking it to the light, but none of them could detect the slightest dimness.

‘I do wish the doctor would be quick,’ said Milly.

‘Doctor’ll be no use,’ John remarked gruffly, returning to gaze again at the immovable face.  ‘Except for an inquest,’ he added.

’I think some one had better walk down to Church Street at once, and tell Aunt Hannah that uncle is here,’ said Leonora.  ’Perhaps she is ill.  Anyhow, she’ll be very anxious.’  But she faltered before the complicated problem.  ’Rose, go and wake Bessie, and ask her if uncle called here during the evening, and tell her to get up at once and light the gas-stove and put some water on to boil, and then to light a fire here.’

‘And who’s to go to Church Street?’ John asked quickly.

Leonora looked for an instant at Rose, as the girl left the room.  She felt that on such an occasion she could more easily spare Ethel’s sweet eagerness to help than Rose’s almost sinister self-possession.  ’Ethel and Milly,’ she said promptly.  ’At least they can run on first.  And be very careful what you say to Aunt Hannah, my dears.  And one of you must hurry back at once in any case, by the road, not by the fields, and tell us what has happened.’