“What is the matter?  How is my brother?”

“Oh, Mrs. Lindsay!”

“Something must have happened.  I had such a presentiment of trouble at home that I could not wait till to-morrow.  I came on the night express.  Why is the house all lighted up?  Is Peyton ill?”

Trembling from head to foot, she waited an instant, but Regina only crouched and groaned, and Mrs. Lindsay sprang up the steps.  As she reached the door, the light in the library revealed the shrouded table,—­the rigid figure resting thereon,—­and a piercing wail broke the silence of death.

“Merciful God!—­not my Peyton?”

Thrusting her fingers into her ears, Regina fled down the walk out of the yard, anywhere to escape the sound and sight of that broken-hearted woman, whose cry was indeed de profundis.

“Console if you will, I can bear it; ’Tis a well-meant alms of breath; But not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other than Death.”

CHAPTER XII.

A dreary sunless December day had drawn to a close, prematurely darkened by a slow drizzling rain, that brought the gloom of early night, where sunset splendours should have lingered, and deepened the sombre desolation that mantled the parsonage.  In anticipation of the arrival of the new minister, who was expected the ensuing week, the furniture had been removed and sold, the books carefully packed and temporarily stored at the warehouse of a friend, and even the trunks containing the wearing apparel of the occupants had been despatched to the railway depot, and checked for transmission by the night express.

The melancholy preparations for departure were completed, friends had paid their final visits, and only Esau the sexton waited with his lantern, to lock up the deserted house, and take charge of the keys.

The last mournful tribute had been offered at the grave in the churchyard, where the beloved pastor slept serenely; and the cold leaden rain fell upon a mass of beautiful flowers, which quite covered the mound, that marked his dreamless couch.

Since that farewell visit to her brother’s tomb, Mrs. Lindsay seemed to have lost her wonted fortitude and composure, and was pacing the empty library, weeping bitterly, giving vent to the long-pent anguish which daily duties and business details had compelled her to restrain.

Impotent to comfort, Regina stood by the mantlepiece, gazing vacantly at the wood fire on the hearth, which supplied only a dim fitful and uncertain light in the bare chill room, once the most cosy and attractive in the whole cheerful house.

How utterly desolate everything appeared now, with only the dreary monotone of the wintry rain on the roof, and the occasional sob that fell from the black-robed figure walking to and fro.

It had been such a happy, peaceful, blessed home, where piety, charity, love, taste, refinement, and education all loaned their charms to the store of witchery, which made it doubly sad to realize that henceforth other feet would tread its floors, other voices echo in its garden and verandahs.