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Aby himself had a cigar in his mouth, and on the floor near the bed-foot was a plate with a cold, greasy mutton chop, Aby having endeavoured in vain to induce his father to fortify exhausted nature by eating. The appearance of the room and the air within it would not have been pleasant to fastidious people. But then the Molletts were not fastidious. "You did see Sir Thomas, then?"
The other door by which the band had entered was likewise curtained, but the drapery hung from an ordinary curtain-rod. As the Duchess finally noted that the pattern was the same on both, she saw that the door at the bed-foot stood open; gleams of ruddy light from the room beyond flickered below the fringed border.
It was between two and three in the morning, and the early northern daylight was already clear, when he awoke and beheld the curtains at the bed-foot drawn aside and his mother appear in the interval, smile upon him for a moment, and then vanish. The sequel is stereotype: he took the time by his watch, and arrived at Broughty to learn it was the very moment of her death.
A pair of satin slippers gleamed from the great bear-skin rug spread by the carved mahogany lions at the bed-foot, where she had flung them off in her weariness after the ball. A crumpled gown hung over a chair, the sleeves touching the floor; stockings which a breath would have blown away were twisted about the leg of an easy-chair; while ribbon garters straggled over a settee.
"He doesn't expect the sunsets and public crises to stand up and be looked at when he reads about them!" So she stayed just where she was. As she stayed, incongruously, a joke out of an old Punch came into her head not at all an esthetic one. It was a picture of a furious woman brandishing a broom, while the tips of her husband's boots showed under the bed-foot.
Frau Ebermann watched indignantly. 'Aie! That is bad and rude. Go away! she cried, though it hurt her to raise her voice. 'Go away by the road you came! The child passed behind the bed-foot, where she could not see her. 'Shut the door as you go. I will speak to Anna, but first, put that white thing straight. She closed her eyes in misery of body and soul.
Milo roused from his dejection and sprang from his knees with amazing promptitude, but he had yet to round the bed-foot when the splendid fury stood panting over the corpse. "Speak!" she cried, shaking the coverlet savagely. Milo, with horror in his shining face, gently removed her hand, then stood before her with bowed head, his cavernous chest heaving wildly. "Fool!
She would and she could... Every morning as she lay awake in the big double-bed with the brass knobs at the bed-foot winking at her in the early light she vowed that she would justify her acceptance of the man who lay sleeping so peacefully beside her. Poor child, her battle with Grace was to teach her how far her will and endurance could carry her...
But his old slumbers were light, or perhaps he slept not; and at the first summons I was bidden enter. This daunted me; nor less, the haggard surmise of misfortune in his eye. Yet his voice was even peaceful as he inquired my errand. I set my candle down upon a chair, leaned on the bed-foot, and looked at him.
Clive woke up the next morning to be aware of a racking headache, and, by the dim light of his throbbing eyes, to behold his father with solemn face at his bed-foot a reproving conscience to greet his waking. "You drank too much wine last night, and disgraced yourself, sir," the old soldier said. "You must get up and eat humble pie this morning, my boy."
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