Mr. Ferguson, who had been with Sarah Maitland when the end came, followed the doctor into the parlor; but neither he nor Blair remembered personalities. They stood together now, listening to what the doctor was saying; Blair, still dazed and unbelieving, put his arm round Nannie and said, "Don't cry, dear; Mr. Ferguson, tell her not to cry!" And the older man said, "Make her sit down, Blair; she looks a little white." Both of them had forgotten individual resentments or embarrassments.
When some people die, it is as if a candle flame were gently blown out; but when, on the other side of the hall, this big woman lay dead on the floor, it seemed to the people who stood by as if the whole machinery of life had stopped. It was so absorbing in its astonishment that everything else became simple. Even when Elizabeth entered, and came to put her arms around Nannie, Blair hardly noticed her. As the doctor and Robert Ferguson spoke together in low tones, of terrible things they called "arrangements," Sarah Maitland's son listened, and tried to make himself understand that they were talking of—his mother!
"I shall stay until everything has been done," Mr. Ferguson said, after the doctor left them. "Blair, you and Elizabeth will be here, of course, to-night? Or else I'll stay. Nannie mustn't be alone."
Blair nodded. "Of course," he said. At which Nannie, who had been crying softly to herself, suddenly looked up.
"I would rather be by myself. I don't want any one here. Please go home with Elizabeth, Blair. Please!"
"But Nannie dear, I want to stay," Blair began, gently; she interrupted him, almost hysterically:
"No! Please! It troubles me. I would rather you didn't. I—I want to be alone."
"Well," Blair said, vaguely; he was too dazed to protest.
Robert Ferguson yielded too, though with a little surprise at her vehemence. Then he turned to Blair; "I'll give you some telegrams that must be sent," he said, in the old friendly voice. It was only when he wrote a despatch to David's mother that the world was suddenly adjusted to its old levels of anger and contempt. "I'll send this myself," he said, coldly. Blair, with instant intuition, replied as coldly, "Oh, very well."
He and Elizabeth went back to the hotel in silence, each deeply shaken by the mere physical fact of death. When they reached the gloomy granite columns of the old River House, Blair left his wife, saying briefly something about "walking for a while." He wanted to be alone. This was not because he felt any lack of sympathy in Elizabeth; on the contrary, he was nearer to her than at any time since their marriage; but it was a moment that demanded solitude. So he wandered about Mercer's streets by himself until after midnight—down to the old covered bridge, past Mrs. Todd's ice-cream saloon, out into the country, where the wind was rising, and the tree-tops had begun to sway against the sky.