“Hughie!”

“I’m here, Auntie,” said Mr. Britling.  “I’m here.”

“Don’t let him get at your Hughie....  Too good for it, dear.  Oh! much—­much too good....  People let these wars and excitements run away with them....  They put too much into them....  They aren’t—­they aren’t worth it.  Don’t let him get at your Hughie.”

“No!”

“You understand me, Hughie?”

“Perfectly, Auntie.”

“Then don’t forget it.  Ever.”

She had said what she wanted to say.  She had made her testament.  She closed her eyes.  He was amazed to find this grotesque old creature had suddenly become beautiful, in that silvery vein of beauty one sometimes finds in very old men.  She was exalted as great artists will sometimes exalt the portraits of the aged.  He was moved to kiss her forehead.

There came a little tug at his sleeve.

“I think that is enough,” said the nurse, who had stood forgotten at his elbow.

“But I can come again?”

“Perhaps.”

She indicated departure by a movement of her hand.

Section 10

The next day Aunt Wilshire was unconscious of her visitor.

They had altered her position so that she lay now horizontally, staring inflexibly at the ceiling and muttering queer old disconnected things.

The Windsor Castle carpet story was still running through her mind, but mixed up with it now were scraps of the current newspaper controversies about the conduct of the war.  And she was still thinking of the dynastic aspects of the war.  And of spies.  She had something upon her mind about the King’s more German aunts.

“As a precaution,” she said, “as a precaution.  Watch them all....  The Princess Christian....  Laying foundation stones....  Cement....  Guns.  Or else why should they always be laying foundation stones?...  Always....  Why?...  Hushed up....

“None of these things,” she said, “in the newspapers.  They ought to be.”

And then after an interval, very distinctly, “The Duke of Wellington.  My ancestor—­in reality....  Publish and be damned.”

After that she lay still....

The doctors and nurses could hold out only very faint hopes to Mr. Britling’s inquiries; they said indeed it was astonishing that she was still alive.

And about seven o’clock that evening she died....

Section 11

Mr. Britling, after he had looked at his dead cousin for the last time, wandered for an hour or so about the silent little watering-place before he returned to his hotel.  There was no one to talk to and nothing else to do but to think of her death.