"Oh! my dear one--my dear one!" wailed the weeping girl.
"There was one queer thing, Miss Ella, that happened that same night," resumed the old man, in a lowered voice. "We got to bed between two and three o'clock. I was the last to leave the room, locking the door behind me. I was the first person to enter the room in the morning; and--what do you think I found there?"
Ella looked at him in silence.
"I found the picture of that beautiful young lady lying face downwards upon the hearth. The nail that had held it for so many years had given way in the night, and there it lay. I have not hung it up again. You, Miss Ella, can do as you like about that. What I say to myself at odd times is this--Why should it fall down the very night the master died?"
Ella Winter felt that she could hear no more just now, and rose from her seat. "I want to see him, Aaron; I will go now. You go on first and bring me word whether anyone is in the room."
"You want to see him!" repeated Aaron, faintly and timidly, as a strangely troubled look took possession of his eyes.
"Yes, of course I do. I will go in now. If my sad eyes could not look upon his face living, they----"
"Oh! my dear Miss Ella," interrupted the old man, "no one's eyes will ever rest on his face again."
Ella stared at him. "What do you mean?" she asked, in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.
"Oh! cannot you guess? They brought his last coffin yesterday, and--and--I needn't tell you the rest."