His shattered body was carried to old Margy's cottage, but the moment of death was hard to determine. All that came to light from the post-mortem examination was that the spine was injured beyond all hope of recovery, and that this was only one of several injuries, any of which might have caused death.
The windows of the ward at the Nursing Home at Chalk Cliff stand wide to allow the sweet air from the sea to come and go at will. All has been done that Death has left to do for Lizarann Coupland. Her end and its cause are certified by medical authority, and registered officially, and a little coffin has been ordered, in which the tiny white thing, like an image well carved in alabaster, that Adeline Fossett and her friend Miss Jane know is under that sheet on the bed, is to be interred shortly, as soon as its Daddy's wishes are known. They never will be, but neither lady knows that yet.
"Poor little darling!" said Miss Fossett. "Do you recollect, Jane, those very last words she said?"
"About the Pilot?"
"No, no—after that. I wasn't sure you heard. I had tried to tell her what ... what it was ... and I couldn't find words. But I fancy the little thing half understood, too. What she said was—quite clearly—'But who's a-going to tell my Daddy?'" It was so like herself. The speaker breaks down; but then, you see, she had taken Lizarann to her heart so thoroughly—was thinking she would never have another child she should be so fond of. Miss Jane is used to these things, and affects strength.
"I think it will be ready for the flowers now," she says, and removes that sheet. Yes, the handkerchief round the face may come away. The two ladies place flowers round the little alabaster head. It is the head, one would say, of a sweet little girl, and the mouth is not too large for beauty now, although that line of black is in the lips.
So it came to pass that neither Lizarann nor her Daddy lived to mourn the loss of the other. The child was never an orphan, and the father only childless an hour or so. And Lizarann never knew what his employment had been, but cherished to the last an untainted memory of those happy days when she led him home, blind but otherwise uninjured, from the honourable fulfilment of some mysterious public service. And yet, had she known, would she have thought it other than right? For, was it not Daddy?