One of the servants said, after waiting a few moments: 'We shan't do that, sir.'
'Oh--Why won't you?'
'We liked her too well, with all her faults.'
'Ah--did you,' said he; and he sighed. He perceived that the younger maids were secretly on Avice's side.
'How does her mother bear it?' Jocelyn asked. 'Is she awake?'
Mrs. Pierston had hardly slept, and, having learnt the tidings inadvertently, became so distracted and incoherent as to be like a person in a delirium; till, a few moments before he arrived, all her excitement ceased, and she lay in a weak, quiet silence.
'Let me go up,' Pierston said. 'And send for the doctor.'
Passing Avice's chamber he perceived that the little bed had not been slept on. At the door of the spare room he looked in. In one corner stood a walking-stick--his own.
'Where did that come from?'
'We found it there, sir.'
'Ah yes--I gave it to him. 'Tis like me to play another's game!'
It was the last spurt of bitterness that Jocelyn let escape him. He went on towards Mrs. Pierston's room, preceded by the servant.
'Mr. Pierston has come, ma'am,' he heard her say to the invalid. But as the latter took no notice the woman rushed forward to the bed. 'What has happened to her, Mr. Pierston? O what do it mean?'
Avice the Second was lying placidly in the position in which the nurse had left her; but no breath came from her lips, and a rigidity of feature was accompanied by the precise expression which had characterized her face when Pierston had her as a girl in his studio. He saw that it was death, though she appeared to have breathed her last only a few moments before.
Ruth Stockwool's composure deserted her. ''Tis the shock of finding Miss Avice gone that has done it!' she cried. 'She has killed her mother!'
'Don't say such a terrible thing!' exclaimed Jocelyn.
'But she ought to have obeyed her mother--a good mother as she was! How she had set her heart upon the wedding, poor soul; and we couldn't help her knowing what had happened! O how ungrateful young folk be! That girl will rue this morning's work!'
'We must get the doctor,' said Pierston, mechanically, hastening from the room.
When the local practitioner came he merely confirmed their own verdict, and thought her death had undoubtedly been hastened by the shock of the ill news upon a feeble heart, following a long strain of anxiety about the wedding. He did not consider that an inquest would be necessary.