She had flung herself weeping into his arms, and he had clasped her in silence; and from his quiet, pressing shoulder, comfort had poured in and in upon her.
It did not hurt at all to die, it was quite all right, he had said. He had just died.
She looked about her, at the brooding room. Nothing but loneliness, helplessness, appalling silence. She was cold too, shivering.
A little while ago she had been next door. Now the house would all be dark, shut to her. Supposing she were to run back to them with her tidings, surely they would help, advise, console: for they were her friends.
‘Roddy, Roddy, Daddy’s dead.’
He was standing with Tony’s arm around his shoulders, remote, indifferently smiling. He did not like grief, and Tony kept him from her. Her time was far away and long ago.
‘Julian, Daddy’s dead.’
He was bowed over the child; and he raised his head to listen, but made no answer. He had plenty of his own sorrows; and he feared she would wake the child.
But Martin might be told, Martin would listen and comfort with large and inarticulate tenderness. He would be standing under the cherry-tree, waiting, just as she had left him. She ran to the window.
There was nobody in the garden. A faint light was abroad,—it might be the small rising moon or the dawn—making the cherry-tree pale and clear. It seemed to float towards her, to swell and tower into the sky, a shining vision.