So the baronet died after a week of severe illness, during which he never regained the power of speech, nor could make himself intelligible. The most distressing thing was that there was evidently something which he wished to say—something which he desired to make them understand. When Pauline was in the room his eyes followed her with a wistful glance, pitiful, sad, distressing; he evidently wished to say something, but had not the power.
With that wish unexpressed he died, and they never knew what it was. Only Pauline thought that he meant, even at the last, to ask her forgiveness and to do her justice.
Darrell Court was thrown into deepest mourning; the servants went about with hushed footsteps and sorrowful faces. He had been kind to them, this stately old master; and who knew what might happen under the new regime? Lady Hampton was, she assured every one, quite overwhelmed with business. She had to make all arrangements for the funeral, to order all the mourning, while Lady Darrell was supposed to be overwhelmed with sorrow in the retirement of her own room.
One fine spring morning, while the pretty bluebells were swaying in the wind, and the hawthorn was shining pink and white on the hedges, while the birds sang and the sun shone, Sir Oswald Darrell was buried, and the secret of what he had wished to say or have done was buried with him.
At Lady Darrell's suggestion, Captain Langton was sent for to attend the funeral. It was a grand and stately procession. All the elite of the county were there, all the tenantry from Audleigh Royal, all the friends who had known Sir Oswald and respected him.
"Was he the last of the Darrells?" one asked of another; and many looked at the stately, dark-eyed girl who bore the name, wondering how he had left his property, whether his niece would succeed him, or his wife take all. They talked of this in subdued whispers as the funeral cortege wound its way to the church, they talked of it after the coffin had been lowered into the vault, and they talked of it as the procession made its way back to Darrell Court.
As Lady Hampton said, it was a positive relief to open the windows and let the blessed sunshine in, to draw up the heavy blinds, to do away with the dark, mourning aspect of the place.
Everything had been done according to rule—no peer of the realm could have had a more magnificent funeral. Lady Hampton felt that in every respect full honor had been done both to the living and the dead.
"Now," she wisely remarked, "there is nothing to be done, save to bear up as well as it is possible."
Then, after a solemn and dreary dinner, the friends and invited guests went away, and the most embarrassing ceremony of all had to be gone through—the reading of the will.