“Grandfather!”

It was the voice of Cora that spoke, and there was a something in its tone that struck and almost awed even the Iron King.

He turned abruptly.

Cora had risen from her chair and was now standing by the bed.  But on the bed lay a little, still, fair form, with hands folded over its breast, with the eyes shut down forever, and all over the fair, wan, placid face was “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.”

“What is this?” demanded Old Aaron Rockharrt, as he came up to the bed.

“Look at her.  She rests at last.  I have been with her twenty years, and this is the first time I have ever seen her rest in peace.”

Old Aaron Rockharrt stood like a stone beside the bed, gazing down on the dead.

“She is safe now, never more to be startled, or frightened, or tortured by any one.  ’Safe, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest,’” continued Cora.

Still Old Aaron stood like a stone beside the bed and gazed down on the dead.

Suddenly, without moving or withdrawing his gaze from where it rested, he asked in a low, gruff tone: 

“How did this happen?”

“She fainted in her chair, and died in that faint.”

“When? where? from what?”

“Within an hour after you had left us together in the back parlor, with the paper containing the news of my husband’s death,” answered Cora, speaking in a tone of most unnatural calmness.

“Had that excitement anything to do with her swoon?”

“I do not know.”

“Give me the particulars.”

“We—­or, rather, she—­first took up the paper, and without knowing what the news was that you told us to look at, gave it to me, and asked me to read it.  I, as soon as I saw what it was—­I lost all control over myself.  I do not know how I behaved.  But she took the paper, to see what it was that had so disturbed me, and then, she, too, became very much agitated; but she tried to console me, tried for a long while to comfort me, standing over my chair, and caressing and talking.  At last she left me, and sat down and leaned back in her own chair.  I was trying to be quiet, and at last succeeded, and then I arose and went to her, meaning to tell her that I would be calm and not distress her any more.  When I looked at her, I found that she had fainted.  I rang and sent off for a doctor instantly, and while waiting for him did all that was possible to revive her, but without effect.  When the doctor came and examined her condition he pronounced her quite dead.”

“This must have occurred four or five hours ago.  Why was I not sent for?”

“You were sent for immediately.  Messengers were dispatched in every direction.  But you could nowhere be found.  They did not, indeed, know where to look for you.”

“Now close the window again, and then go and leave me alone; and do not let any one disturb me on any account,” said the old man, who had not once moved from the bedside, or even lifted his gaze from the face of the dead.