“No,” said Cally.  Yet surely she had heard.

He was limping through the door toward her; dirt on his clothes; dark stains on his fine snowy waistcoat.  And then his arm was hard round her neck; papa’s head buried upon her breast, like a sorry boy’s.

“My poor little girl.”

So there had been a glimmer within, after all.  It went out, with a mortal throe.  All was black.

But surely this was quite, quite unreal; but one more horror of the night, the last and the worst.  Ah, surely, surely, she had but to make one great effort to find herself sitting up in the dark; trembling, but alive.

“How badly are you hurt?”

“Nothing....  Arm’s broke....  No one else.”

Then they were standing in the wide dim hall.  The door was shut, and she was holding by the knob.  And she heard a voice, so small, so strangely calm.

“How did it happen, papa?”

Papa had his sound arm raised, his hand rubbing vaguely at his lips.  But it was not his own pain and shock that had bleached those lips so white.

“Floor crashed in—­without warning ... broke through.  He’d made a suggestion—­some braces.  So I took him up to look.  We were standing there ... standing underneath.  Standing there, talking.  And the floor gave way ... cracked ... caved in on us.  One machine came down....”

The voice, too, seemed to cave in.  And some one was squeezing her hand, very hard.

So nothing was wanting from the finished picture, not the last exquisite stroke.  He, the believer, had believed even in her father’s floors.  It was she who had doubted, she who had asked the help that never failed.  Had he not told her not to worry?...

But if only she hadn’t stopped going inside.  If only her heart would soon begin to beat again....

Chas Cooney was winking his keen eyes.

“He’d got clear—­there was plenty of time....  One of the negro women was knocked over by a flying splinter....  Things were falling all around.  So he stopped for her....  She wasn’t hurt at all, when we pulled her out....  Of course Uncle Thornton was back in it all.  A beam knocked him senseless....”

“Surgeon said it was instantaneous,” came papa’s shadowy voice.  “Well....  It’s on my head.  I’m responsible.  I know that.”

And he sat down uncertainly, and somewhat pitifully, on the tall hall-chair....

Then nobody said anything more.  There would never be anything more to say.  Time would go on a long while yet, but no one would ever add another touch here.  This was the end of the world.

He had trusted the Heths too far.

And how strange and void it was at the world’s end, how deadly still but for the faint roarings of waters far off.

She was walking toward her father.  Through the roaring there came a voice, so little and so remote.

“Papa, you must come up to bed....  I’ll telephone for the doctor.”