Gladys gave a violent start.  The word was hideous; how hideous, she had never realised till it fell from her uncle’s lips.  But she controlled herself; nothing was to be gained by exhibitions of feeling in his presence.

’No, they will come, I think, to-morrow, quite early.  I did not wish it done sooner,’ she answered quietly.  ’If you come now, I can show you the door.’  She took the lamp from the table, and, with a gesture of dignity, motioned him to follow her.  At the door of the little room where the artist had suffered and died she gave him the lamp, and herself disappeared into the studio.  Not to sit down and helplessly weep.  That must be over now; there were things to be thought of, things to do, on the threshold of her new life, and she was ready for action.  She found the matches, struck a light, and began at once to gather together the few things she must now sacredly cherish as mementoes of her father.  First she took up with tender hand the little canvas from the easel, looked at it a moment, and then touched the face with her lips.  It was her mother’s face, which she remembered not, but had been taught to love by her father, who cherished its memory with a most passionate devotion.  She wrapped it in an old silk handkerchief, and then began a trifle dreamily to gather together the old brushes with which John Graham had done so much good, if unappreciated, work.  Meanwhile the old man was alone in the chamber of death.  He had no nerves, no fine sensibilities, and little natural affection to make the moment trying to him.  He entered the room in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, set the lamp on the washhand-stand, and approached the bed.  As he stood there, looking on the face, calm, restful, beautiful in its last sleep, a wave of memory, unbidden and unwelcome, swept over his selfish and hardened heart.  The years rolled back, and he saw two boys kneeling together in childish love at their mother’s knee, lisping their evening prayer, unconscious of the bitter years to come.  Almost the white, still outline of the dead face seemed to reproach him; he could have anticipated the sudden lifting of the folded eyelids.  He shivered slightly, took an impatient step back to the table for the lamp, and made haste from the room.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III

THE NEW HOME.

Next day at noon that strangely-assorted pair, the sordid old man and the gentle child, set out in a peasant’s waggon, which he had hired for a few pence, to ride across the meadows to Boston.  The morning was very fair.  In the night the mist had flown, and now the sun shone out warm and cheerful, giving the necessary brightness to the scene.  It lay tenderly on the quaint fen village, and the little gilt vane on the church steeple glittered proudly, almost as if it were real gold.