“’Twasn’t no fault of anybody’s, my lord; and there ain’t any damage to the ponies,” he began, hastening to excuse himself.  “The little lord only slid off, and they stood as quiet as quiet.  There wasn’t no cause for my lady’s fear.”

“Is she fainting still?”

“They say she’s—­dead.”

Lord Hartledon pressed onwards, and met Mr. Hillary at the hall-door.  The surgeon took his arm and drew him into an empty room.

“Hillary! is it true?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

Lord Hartledon felt his sight failing.  For a moment he was a man groping in the dark.  Steadying himself against the wall, he learned the details.

The child’s pony had swerved.  Ralph could not tell at what, and Lady Hartledon did not survive to tell.  She was looking at him at the time, and saw him flung under the feet of the other pony, and she rose up in the carriage with a scream, and then fell back into the seat again.  Ralph jumped out and picked up the child, who was not hurt at all; but when he hastened to tell her this, he saw that she seemed to have no life in her.  One of the servants, Richard, happened to be going through the Park, within sight; others soon came up; and whilst Lady Hartledon was being driven home Richard ran for Mr. Hillary, and then sought his master, whom he found at the Rectory.  The surgeon had found her dead.

“It must have been instantaneous,” he observed in low tones as he concluded these particulars.  “One great consolation is, that she was spared all suffering.”

“And its cause?” breathed Lord Hartledon.

“The heart.  I don’t entertain the least doubt about it.”

“You said she had no heart disease.  Others said it.”

“I said, if she had it, it was not developed.  Sudden death from it is not at all uncommon where disease has never been suspected.”

And this was all the conclusion come to in the case of Lady Hartledon.  Examination proved the surgeon’s surmise to be correct; and in answer to a certain question put by Lord Hartledon, he said the death was entirely irrespective of any trouble, or care, or annoyance she might have had in the past; irrespective even of any shock, except the shock at the moment of death, caused by seeing the child thrown.  That, and that alone, had been the fatal cause.  Lord Hartledon listened to this, and went away to his lonely chamber and fell on his knees in devout thankfulness to Heaven that he was so far innocent.

“If she had not given way to the child!” he bitterly aspirated in the first moments of sorrow.

That the countess-dowager should come down post-haste and invade Hartledon, was of course only natural; and Lord Hartledon strove not to rebel against it.  But she made herself so intensely and disagreeably officious that his patience was sorely tried.  Her first act was to insist on a stately funeral.  He had given orders for one plain and quiet in every way; but she would have her wish carried out, and raved about the house, abusing him for his meanness and want of respect to his dead wife.  For peace’ sake, he was fain to give her her way; and the funeral was made as costly as she pleased.  Thomas Carr came down to it; and the countess-dowager was barely civil to him.