They drove to the Hall. Neither of them spoke again. It was not until afterwards that Gerald heard that Ethel had become suddenly worse the day before. Sir William D—— had been summoned; he had arrived last night, and had pronounced her to be in imminent danger.
The carriage drew up at the Hall door. A lamp was burning faintly on the great staircase. By its light Gerald saw Lord Venniker standing there. His face looked haggard; he was shedding tears. He embraced Gerald with passionate sorrow, crying, ‘My poor boy, you are too late. She died half an hour ago.’
There was a heavy thud upon the floor. Gerald had fallen. Lord Venniker and Harry raised him from the ground and laid him on a sofa. The shock of his fall had restored consciousness. He asked where he was.
The sore throat from which Ethel Venniker had been suffering when Gerald left Helmsbury had, it seemed, been the premonitor of dire disease. Unhappily the local doctor had not understood its early symptoms. When Sir William D—— arrived, he pronounced it to be acute diphtheria. The breathing was already difficult. The end was at hand. No human skill could have saved her.
It was thought afterwards that she had contracted the disease in visiting one of the cottages where the drainage was bad. Her act of charity had been fatal to her. O God!
The days that follow are a blank. Lady Venniker was so ill that grave anxiety was felt for her life. The doctors never left her.
Gerald sat in the chamber of death until he was led away lovingly by Harry. On the fourth day was the funeral. Gerald was the chief mourner. He seemed dazed. Next to him walked Lord Venniker and Harry.
The bishop of the diocese, who was to have performed the marriage, came at his own desire to officiate at the funeral.
The orange-flower was exchanged for the cypress leaf.
The church was crowded with the villagers all dressed in mourning. At the words ‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ the bishop’s voice broke down, and it was as though a sob arose from all that multitude.