"Hours ago," said the doctor to himself, shaking his head; "he is quite cold; who saw him last?"
"O doctor, do something!" cried Cicely, clasping her hands; "don't lose time; don't let him be like this; do something--oh, do something, doctor! Don't you know that we are going to-day?"
He turned round upon her very gently, and the group at the door moved with a rustling movement of sympathy. Betsy fell a crying loudly, and some of the men put their hands to their eyes. The doctor took Cicely by the arm, and turned her away with gentle force.
"My dear, you must come with me. I want to speak to you in the next room."
"My poor child," said the compassionate doctor, "we can do nothing for him now."
Cicely stood quite still for a moment, then the hot blood flushed into her face, followed by sudden paleness. She drew herself out of the kind doctor's hold, and went back and knelt down again by her father's side. Do nothing more for him--while still he sat there, just as he always did, in his own chair?
"Papa, what is it?" she said, trembling, while they all stood round. Suddenly the roughest of all the men, one of the labourers, broke forth into loud sobs.
"Don't you, miss--don't, for the love of God!" cried the man.
She could not hear it. All this came fresh to her word for word a little later, but just then she heard nothing. She took the hand the doctor had taken, and put her warm cheek and her young lips to it.
"He is cold because he has been sleeping in his chair," she cried, appealing to them. "Nothing else--what could it be else? and we are going away to-day!"
The doctor grasped at her arm, almost hurting her. "Come," he said, "Cicely, this is not like you. We must carry him to bed. Come with me to another room. I want to ask you how he was last night."
This argument subdued her, and she went meekly out of the room, trying to think that her father was to be carried to his bed, and that all might still be well. Trying to think so; though a chill had fallen upon her, and she knew, in spite of herself.
The men shut the door reverently as the doctor took her away, leaving him there whom no one dared to touch, while they stood outside talking in whispers. Mr. St. John, still and cold, kept possession of the place. He had gone last night, when Cicely saw him, to fetch those relics of his Hester, which he had kept for so many years in his room; but, in his feeble state, had been so long searching before he could find them, that sleep had overtaken Cicely, and she had not heard him stumbling downstairs again with his candle. Heaven knows what fancy it was that had sent him to seek his wife's cloak and hat; his mind had got confused altogether with trouble and weakness, and the shock of uprootal; and then he had sat down again with a smile, with her familiar garments ready for her, to wait through the night till Hester came. What hour or moment it was no one could tell; but Hester, or some other angel, had come for him according to his expectation, and left nothing but the case and husk of him sitting, as he had sat waiting for her, with her cloak upon his knees.