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“I am tired. Send in the other one.”

The Captain came next. He went in, with his square shoulders squared, and his black eyebrow down; and he was there for a quarter of an hour, at the end of which he came out, without a word, and sat down upon the top step of the stairs, with his head in his hands.

“She said that I had a good heart under the swagger,” said Charles, when Marianne, coming softly along the passage, put a hand upon his hair. He did not lift his head. “She said that I should be a decent man, if I had the fortune to be told when I was a fool. She said that I was to look after my brother. And she —” He laughed, wetly, through his fingers. “She told me to be careful not to get fat like her husband had done and gave me a peppermint.”

It was afternoon when Willoughby arrived.

He had ridden. He had not waited for the carriage; he had set out at first light, upon the black mare, and covered the twenty-eight miles at a pace that had left the animal wet with sweat; and he came up the stairs of Allenham, in his boots, with his hat still upon his head, and his face grey, and his hand upon the banister. He stopped at the door. It was Charles who came out, and said, “She is very tired. She has been asking for you.”

He went in. He closed the door behind him.

They did not know what was said. It was a long time, and when the door opened and Mr. Willoughby came out, with his cravat undone and his eyes moist, he was carrying, in both hands, as one carries something that will break, a small oval miniature in a gold frame, of a boy of about ten years old, in a blue jacket, with black hair and a smile.

Willoughby said, to nobody, in a thick voice. “I had forgotten it. She has kept it. She says that it was the only thing in the whole house that she was fond of.” He looked down at it. “She said — she said that she had thought I should have sense enough to want it.”

He did not say anything more. He sat down, upon the top stair, by the side of Charles, and put an arm round him; and the two dark heads, one with grey and the other one quite black, bent together, and remained so.

In the last light of day, in the great bedroom, with the windows open upon the garden, and the smell of stock and grass coming in upon the warm air, the three of them stood about the bed.

She had been very quiet for some time. She lay with her eyes closed, and the light lying upon the fine, clear, sharp old features, which had gone all at once, without any change, quite smooth; and there was so little sound, in the whole of the great room, that when at last she spoke it was as if a picture had turned its head.

“Henry.”

“I am here, Aunt Smith.”

“You will remember.”

“I shall remember.”

“Charles.”

“Yes, Aunt?”

“I am glad I got to know you.”

“I am glad I got to know you, Aunt. And I shall try not to get fat.”

She gave the slightest smile.

“And you — John. You are there.”

“I am here, Aunt,” said Willoughby.

“You did —” She stopped. The breath came, and went, and came again. “You did tolerably. I have said it. I meant it. You may — you may put that in your — you may tell that little woman, that she is a good sort. She will know.”

“I shall tell her.”

“That is all.” The pale lids fluttered. “It has been a very long life,” said Mrs. Smith, in a voice that was hardly more than a breath. “I did not think that it would end so well.”

And after that she said nothing more. She lay, in the fading light, with a small smile; and it was perhaps a quarter of an hour, in the long silence, before it was seen that the breathing had ceased.

Nobody spoke. Outside the window, at dusk, in the great mulberry tree, a blackbird began to sing.

Mrs. Smith had left instructions for her funeral. They were found in the top drawer of her writing-table, under a tin of peppermints, in a large firm upright hand that had not been changed by age, and they were addressed To whom it may concern, and to Mr. Pettigrew in particular. She was to be buried under the yew, next to her husband, where, as she had noted, the sun comes first in the morning, and the wall keeps off the north wind. Mr. Ferrars, of Delaford, whom she had always considered the only man within thirty miles who did not think that he was doing the Almighty a favour, was to read the service; and it was to be as short as decency permitted.

Edward read the service. He did it in his plain low voice, with the rain pattering upon the book; and he read it, as Mrs. Smith had wished, quite simply, and quite short. He did not say that she was a good woman. He did not say that she had been a great one. He said only that she had lived fourscore years and one, the greater part of them in that parish, and had never once, in all that time, said a thing she did not mean; and that there were a great many people present who were the better for it.

They had tea afterwards, at Allenham, in the long low drawing-room, with a fire, because it was damp.