The funeral was held in the parish church, and old Parson Trant preached the sermon. With his eyes wet with the flood of sympathy and sorrow, and his voice unsteady and quivering, he delivered to the hushed multitudes an address upon "How are the mighty fallen." He called to their minds the deeds of the squire and his open, frank, generous life in such a tender manner that many of the audience wept in sorrow as acute as his own. There was possibly one of that audience who felt more keenly than others, and he bowed his head down as if ashamed to meet the gaze of the people around him. It was Captain Tom Lanyan. His sorrow was increased with the thought that it was some action of his brother that caused the squire's death. None of the other Lanyans were present. Sir James had to leave to attend to some business in Plymouth, and, informing his lawyer to foreclose the mortgage on the estate and tin mine and secure a tenant for the Manor, he embarked on the first vessel from Falmouth. Mistress Betty was ill of same fancied ailment, and Richard was, no one knew where.
After the funeral there was much condolence offered to Mistress Alice Vivian, but no personal help, no one being aware that the Manor and even the home furniture had passed out of the hands of the Vivian family. But Alice knew, and with a sickening sense of loneliness and helplessness she passed out of the gates of the Manor on the evening of the same day of the funeral. She had packed up her little personal belongings and had forwarded them that afternoon to Penzance, where she in tended following on the morrow. With a heart full of unuttered grief she wended her way to the old parish church and churchyard to pay a last visit to her father's tomb. The sun had long since disappeared beneath the horizon, and the pale, glimmering moon flooded hill and dale with ghostly, limpid light, whitening the cornices of the old church tower in the distance, deepening the shadows 'neath the trees, and bringing into gleaming prominence the white monuments of the departed. The gates of the cemetery were passed at length, but there was no fear or terror in her heart. Why should she fear? The dead could not hurt her, and it was less lonely here than in the great, empty Manor house. The church door was not locked, and opening it she passed down the long aisle, the tile work underneath echoing hollowly to her faint tread. Near the altar was the tomb of her father. The moonbeams, penetrating the coloured windows, illuminated it with a soft warm radiance, so clear, that the lettering could be easily discerned. She contemplated the inscription with tearful, stony gaze and then read softly to herself:
Richard Vivian, Esq.
Trembath Manor
"How are the mighty fallen."
It was the text of the funeral sermon that was inscribed below. There was nothing more save the dates of birth and death. Suddenly a keener sense of her loss and loneliness came upon her, and she bowed herself to the floor, giving vent to the first outpouring of grief—a grief that she had restrained until then. Sobs and cries, low, yet full of grief, shook and convulsed her frame.
"Oh, father! father! do you know how lonely I am? I am your daughter, your Allie, and you always wanted me near you. I am here near you, father, and yet I cannot feel your presence, for you are gone and I am alone." A great sob checked her utterance, and for a long time she struggled with her grief, murmuring incoherently, and, then arising, she dried her eyes.
"Perhaps he sees still, and pities my grief and solitude. Parson Trant said that the dead are more alive than the living—'I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.'" She quoted the Scripture passage softly to herself, and it seemed to give some comfort. "Yes, he must see and hear." A noise near the distant tower door startled her. She gazed that way, though not in fear. Who could be in these sacred precincts at night beside herself? she asked mentally. The noise was not repeated. It was some owl or bat, or perhaps it was a slight breeze that had moved the slightly opened door, she thought, and then turning to the altar she knelt down in prayer.
"O God, I have now no father, no friend, no helper but Thee. I am friendless, homeless, poor and lonely. Be my helper and give me strength. Be my father, O Thou who art above, and hold me in Thy protecting arms. Thou art the defence of the widow and the fatherless; be Thou the defence of the fatherless now and hold me in the hollow of Thy hand. O God, all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over my soul. At one blow I lose all. Supported by a father's love, it is taken from me; reared in comfort, I am reduced to bitter poverty; surrounded by friends—yet to-day alone and helpless, and yet,—Thou wilt not forsake me, for Thou dost mark the sparrow's fall. I go a stranger among strangers in a strange land, yet Thou wilt not forsake me. Oh, be a light to my feet, a guide to my way, and a stay in my helplessness."
Some time more she spent at the altar in silent prayer, and then arising and casting a long lingering look at the silent tomb near her, she slowly wended her way down the silent and deserted church, and thence on and out of the cemetery.
Without she walked rapidly along the highway, when the figure of a man emerged from the shadow of the cemetery gate and followed and overtook her.
"Mistress Alice," he said, laying a detaining hand on her arm. She started and would have fled, but he restrained her. "You are out late; let me attend you."