To Ella the shock was sudden and terrible. Having lost both father and mother when she was very young, all the affection of her heart, which would have been theirs, had they lived, was lavished on her uncle. It was as though she had been orphaned at one blow. Her anguish was made more bitter by the fact of her not having been with her uncle at the last. Why had he sent her away when he was so ill? Why had he so persistently refused to allow her to return earlier? And now she should never see him more!
Mrs. Carlyon took all needful travelling and business arrangements on herself, and left Ella to nurse her grief undisturbed. They found themselves in London within twenty-four hours of the receipt of the telegram. Here they were compelled to stay all night, and after ordering their mourning, they started next day for Norfolk--leaving Higson behind, who had latterly been far from well. "A little rest will do her good," said Mrs. Carlyon. The close carriage, attended by Hubert Stone, met them at the station on their arrival, and they were at once driven to the Hall.
A short while given to her natural grief and emotion, and Ella summoned Aaron Stone to her presence in one of the smaller sitting-rooms. The blinds were down; the room looked dark and dreary.
Aaron came in, creeping and trembling, his head down. He was a crusty man, but faithful, and his master had been very dear to him. Ella felt for his grief. She advanced a few steps impulsively, and took one of his rugged hands into her soft palms.
"Oh, Aaron, old friend--you were his friend, and you are my friend--if you could have sent me word!" she sobbed. "If I could but have seen him once more before he was lost to me for ever!"
"There was no time to do anything--there wasn't really, Miss Ella," whispered the old man, his gnarled features working convulsively. "Nobody knew, nobody thought, what was going to happen, all suddenly, in the night."
"Sit down, Aaron," drawing a chair near her, "and tell me all that there is to be told. Oh for one look from his kind eyes!--for one word from those lips that will never speak to me again!"
It was an easy-chair she had given to Aaron; he sat in it, gazing at the fire, his chin resting on his hand. The weather was very chilly still, though June was near; and the large old Hall never seemed hot even in the sultry days of summer.
"It seems to me very strange, Aaron," began Ella, for the old man did not attempt to speak, "that there should be no signs observable, no apparent intimations that Uncle Gilbert was so near his end. What has the Doctor--Jago--to say about it?"
"I never saw a man more dumbfounded than Dr. Jago was," replied Aaron. "Says he, looking down at the poor Squire, 'I made sure that he would last for months yet'--maybe, you see, Miss Ella, he thought his treatment had put a new lease of life into him."