Maggie
nodded her head.
"I'll go and see," she said.
She went into the hall and stood again listening. Then she called,
"Father! Father!" but there was no answer. She had never in all her
life been frightened by anything and she was not frightened now;
nevertheless, as she went up the stairs, she looked behind her to
see whether any one followed her.
She called again "Father!" then went to his door, pushed it open,
and looked in. The room was cold with a faint scent of tallow candle
and damp.
In the twilight she saw her father's body lying like a shadow
stretched right across the floor, with the grey dirty fingers of one
hand clenched.
After that events followed swiftly. Maggie herself had no time nor
opportunity for any personal emotion save a dumb kind of wonder that
she did not feel more. But she saw all "through a glass darkly."
There had been first that moment when the sexton and Uncle Mathew,
still like dogs sniffing, had peered with their eyes through her
father's door. Then there had been the summoning of Dr. Bubbage from
the village, his self-importance, his continual "I warned him.
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