“I cannot make him swallow it,” she said—­“Can you, Robin?  He looks so grey and cold!—­but his lips are quite warm.”

Robin, restraining the emotion that half choked him and threatened to overflow in womanish weeping, went up to her and tried to coax her away from the bedside.

“Dear, if you could leave him for a little it would perhaps be better,” he said.  “He might—­he might recover sooner.  We have sent for the doctor—­he will be here directly—­”

“I will stay here till he comes,” replied the girl, quietly.  “How can you think I would leave Dad when he’s ill?  If we could only rouse him a little—­”

Ah, that “if”!  If we could only rouse our beloved ones who fall into that eternal sleep, would not all the riches and glories of the world seem tame in comparison with such joy!  Innocent had never seen death—­she could not realise that this calm irresponsiveness, this cold and stiffening rigidity, meant an end to the love and care she had known all her life—­love and care which would never be replaced in quite the same way!

The first peep of a silver dawn began to peer through the lattice window, and as she saw this suggestion of wakening life, a sudden dread clutched at her heart and made it cold.

“It will be morning soon,” she said—­“Priscilla, when will the doctor come?”

Scarcely had she said the words when the doctor entered.  He took a comprehensive glance round the room,—­at the still form on the bed—­at the little crouching girl—­figure beside it—­at Priscilla, trembling and tearful—­at Robin, deadly pale and self-restrained—­ at the farm-lads and servants.

“When did this happen?” he said.

Robin told him.

“I see!” he said.  “He must have fallen forward on getting out of bed.  I rather expected a sudden seizure of this kind.”  He made his brief examination.  The eyes of the dead man were open and glassily staring upward—­he gently closed the lids over them and pressed them down.

“Nothing to be done,” he went on, gently—­“His end was painless.”

Innocent had risen—­she had laid the cold hand of the corpse back on its breast—­and she stood gazing vacantly before her in utter misery.

“Nothing to be done?” she faltered—­“Do you mean that you cannot rouse him?  Will he never speak to me again?”

The doctor looked at her gravely and kindly.

“Not in this world, my dear,” he said—­“in the next—­perhaps!  Let us hope so!”

She put her hand up to her forehead with a bewildered gesture.

“He is dead!” she cried—­“Dead!  Oh, Robin, Robin!  I can’t believe it!—­it isn’t true!  Dad, dear Dad!  My only friend!  Good-bye—­good-bye, Dad!—­good-bye, Briar Farm—­good-bye to everything—­oh, Dad!”

Her voice quavered and broke in a passion of tears.

“I loved him as if he were my own father,” she sobbed.  “And he loved me as if I were his own child!  Oh, Dad, darling Dad!  We can never love each other again!”