Blantyre caught him by the arm and they walked the lawn for a long time in fraternal intercourse.
Lucy sat down with the doctor, but her eyes often turned to the tall, grave figure, whose lengthening shadow sometimes reached to her feet and touched them.
At last they heard the panting of the returning motor-car. Stephens had arrived with the oil that the Bishop had blessed.
The whole party got into the car, which was a large one, and they set off rapidly through the streets towards Malakoff House.
How strange it was, Lucy thought, this swift career of moderns in the wonderful machine of their age, this rush to the bedside of a dying woman with the last consolation of the Church! It was full of awe, but full of sweetness also. It seemed to show—and how plainly—the divine continuity of the Faith, the harmonic welding of the order and traditions of our Lord's own time with the full vivid life of the nineteenth century.
They were shown into the grim house. Truly the shadow of death seemed to lie there, was exhaled from the massive funereal furniture of a bygone generation, with all its faded pomp and circumstance.
The mistress of it all was going away from it for ever, would never hold her tawdry court in that grim drawing-room any more.
Dr. Coxe, Hibbert's assistant, came down-stairs and met them.
"I have got the two Hamlyns out of the house at last," he whispered. "They were distressing the patient greatly. I insisted, however. We had a row on the stairs—fortunately, I don't think the patient could hear it. I'm sorry, doctor, but I had to use a little physical persuasion to the young one."
"Never mind, Coxe," Hibbert answered. "I'll see that nothing comes of it. They won't dare to do anything. I will see to that. Is Miss Pritchett ready? Can we go up?"