‘The body!’

Molly had never felt that Osborne was really dead till she heard those words.  They rode quick under the shadows of the budding hedgerow trees, but when they slackened speed, to go up a brow, or to give their horses breath, Molly heard those two little words again in her cars; and said them over again to herself, in hopes of forcing the sharp truth into her unwilling sense.  But when they came in sight of the square stillness of the house, shining in the moonlight—­the moon had risen by this time—­Molly caught at her breath, and for an instant she thought she never could go in, and face the presence in that dwelling.  One yellow light burnt steadily, spotting the silver shining with its earthly coarseness.  The man pointed it out:  it was almost the first word he had spoken since they had left Hollingford.

’It’s the old nursery.  They carried him there.  The squire broke down at the stair-foot, and they took him to the readiest place.  I’ll be bound for it the squire is there hisself, and old Robin too.  They fetched him, as a knowledgable man among dumb beasts, till th’ regular doctor came.’

Molly dropped down from her seat before the man could dismount to help her.  She gathered up her skirts and did not stay again to think of what was before her.  She ran along the once familiar turns, and swiftly up the stairs, and through the doors, till she came to the last; then she stopped and listened.  It was a deathly silence.  She opened the door:  the squire was sitting alone at the side of the bed, holding the dead man’s hand, and looking straight before him at vacancy.  He did not stir or move, even so much as an eyelid, at Molly’s entrance.  The truth had entered his soul before this, and he knew that no doctor, be he ever so cunning, could, with all his striving, put the breath into that body again.  Molly came up to him with the softest steps, the most hushed breath that ever she could.  She did not speak, for she did not know what to say.  She felt that he had no more hope from earthly skill, so what was the use of speaking of her father and the delay in his coming?  After a moment’s pause, standing by the old man’s side, she slipped down to the floor, and sate at his feet.  Possibly her presence might have some balm in it; but uttering of words was as a vain thing.  He must have been aware of her being there, but he took no apparent notice.  There they sate, silent and still, he in his chair, she on the floor; the dead man, beneath the sheet, for a third.  She fancied that she must have disturbed the father in his contemplation of the quiet face, now more than half, but not fully, covered up out of sight.  Time had never seemed so without measure, silence had never seemed so noiseless as it did to Molly, sitting there.  In the acuteness of her senses she heard a step mounting a distant staircase, coming slowly, coming nearer.  She knew it not to be her father’s, and that was all she cared about.  Nearer and nearer—­close to the outside of the door—­a pause, and a soft hesitating tap.  The great gaunt figure sitting by her side quivered at the sound.  Molly rose and went to the door:  it was Robinson, the old butler, holding in his hand a covered basin of soup.