They followed her to the door and saw her cross the hall, into which the soft glow of morning was now stealing fast, and there was something weird and strange about her movements as she went on and slowly opened the study door, to pass from their sight, as it were, from day into night.
One moment, the morning light bathed her light dress and gave her a look that was mistily transparent; the next, as she passed through the doorway into the shuttered and curtained room, the glow from the lamp within made her black and strange.
Then the door swung to behind her as she walked silently over the thick carpet.
“Miss Gartram! You have come?”
Claude made no reply, but walked straight to the couch upon which her father had been laid, and there she stood mentally stunned and unable to realise the fact.
His face looked stern and hard, but no more stern and hard than she had often seen it when she had stolen into the room where he had been lying asleep—as he appeared to be lying now—after some tiresome, wakeful night. Everything was the same, even to the faint odour of drugs and spirits which pervaded the place.
For one instant a flash of hope illumined her dark heart, but it was only for a moment. No: he would wake no more. The end had come; and as the truth forced itself deep down into her heart, she sank slowly upon her knees, placed her hands gently round the stalwart figure, and laying her cheek against the stony face, she whispered softly—
“Father, father! I loved you very dearly. Left—left alone!”