him for a bit, he examined him where he lay, and he found the back was broke.  He told the mistress straight out.  “His back’s broke,” he said.  “There’s no hope,” he said.  “It may be a few hours, or less,” he said.  Then he sent for a mattress and we laid the master on it, down in the hall, and put hot-water bottles to his feet, and then the mistress said I’d better go back to bed; but, oh, dear, I couldn’t do that, so I just waited in the kitchen and got a kettle boiling in case the mistress and Miss Clare would like a cup of tea, and I had a cup myself, my lady, for I was all of a didder, and nothing pulls you round like a drop of hot tea.  Then I took two cups out into the hall for the mistress and Miss Clare, and when I got there the doctor was saying, “It’s all over,” and, dear me, so it was, so I took the tea back to keep it hot against they were ready for it, for I couldn’t speak to them of tea just at first, could I, my lady?  Then the doctor called me, and there was Miss Clare laying in a fit, and he was bringing her round.  He told me to help her to her room, and so I did, and she seemed half stunned-like, and didn’t say a word, but dropped on her bed like a stone.  Then I had to help the doctor and the mistress carry the poor master on the mattress up to his room, and lay him on his bed; and the doctor saw to Miss Clare a little, then he went away and said he’d send round a woman for the laying out....  Poor Miss Clare, I was sorry for her.  Laid like a stone, she did, as white as milk.  She’s such a one to feel, isn’t she, my lady?  And to hear the fall and run out and find him like that!  The poor master!  Them stairs, I always hated them.  The back stairs are bad enough, when I have to carry the hot water up and down, but they don’t turn so sharp.  The poor master, he must have stumbled backwards, the light not being good, and fallen clean over.  And it isn’t as if he was like some gentlemen, that might have had a drop at dinner; no one ever saw the master the worse, did they, my lady?  I’m sure cook and me and every one always thought him such a nice, good gentleman.  I don’t know what cook will say when she hears, I’m sure I don’t.’

‘It is indeed all very terrible and sad, Emily,’ I said to her.  I left her then, and went up to the drawing-room.

Jane was sitting at the writing table, her pen in one hand, her forehead resting on the other.

‘My dear,’ I said to her, ’Emily has been giving me some account of last night.  She tells me that Mr. Gideon was here.’

‘She’s quite right,’ said Jane listlessly.  ’I met him at Katherine’s, and he saw me home and came in for a little.’

I was silent for a moment.  It seemed to me rather sad that Jane should have this memory of her husband’s last evening on this earth, for she knew that Oliver had not liked her to see much of Mr. Gideon.  I understood why she had been loath to mention it to me.

‘And had he gone,’ I asked her softly, ‘when ...  It ... happened?’