No need, O Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, inthat hour which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour--no need tohave said, 'Think of me at my best!' I had done that ever; and could Ichange now, looking on this sight!

They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with aflag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All the menwho carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him, and seen himmerry and bold. They carried him through the wild roar, a hush in themidst of all the tumult; and took him to the cottage where Death wasalready.

But when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at oneanother, and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as if it werenot right to lay him down in the same quiet room.

We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as Icould at all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged him toprovide me a conveyance in which it could be got to London in the night.I knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother toreceive it, could only rest with me; and I was anxious to discharge thatduty as faithfully as I could.

I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less curiositywhen I left the town. But, although it was nearly midnight when I cameout of the yard in a chaise, followed by what I had in charge, therewere many people waiting. At intervals, along the town, and even alittle way out upon the road, I saw more: but at length only the bleaknight and the open country were around me, and the ashes of my youthfulfriendship.

Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed byfallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, andbrown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was shining, Iarrived at Highgate. I walked the last mile, thinking as I went along ofwhat I had to do; and left the carriage that had followed me all throughthe night, awaiting orders to advance.

The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind wasraised; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its coveredway leading to the disused door. The wind had quite gone down, andnothing moved.

I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when I didring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of thebell. The little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her hand; andlooking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said:

'I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill?'

'I have been much agitated, and am fatigued.'

'Is anything the matter, sir?---Mr. James?--' 'Hush!' said I. 'Yes,something has happened, that I have to break to Mrs. Steerforth. She isat home?'

The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now,even in a carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no company, butwould see me. Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss Dartle was withher. What message should she take upstairs?

Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only tocarry in my card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room (whichwe had now reached) until she should come back. Its former pleasant airof occupation was gone, and the shutters were half closed. The harp hadnot been used for many and many a day. His picture, as a boy, wasthere. The cabinet in which his mother had kept his letters was there. Iwondered if she ever read them now; if she would ever read them more!

The house was so still that I heard the girl's light step upstairs. Onher return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs. Steerforthwas an invalid and could not come down; but that if I would excuse herbeing in her chamber, she would be glad to see me. In a few moments Istood before her.

She was in his room; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she hadtaken to occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many tokensof his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was surrounded,remained there, just as he had left them, for the same reason. Shemurmured, however, even in her reception of me, that she was out of herown chamber because its aspect was unsuited to her infirmity; and withher stately look repelled the least suspicion of the truth.

At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first moment ofher dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of eviltidings. The scar sprung into view that instant. She withdrew herselfa step behind the chair, to keep her own face out of Mrs. Steerforth'sobservation; and scrutinized me with a piercing gaze that neverfaltered, never shrunk.

'I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir,' said Mrs. Steerforth.

'I am unhappily a widower,' said I.

'You are very young to know so great a loss,' she returned. 'I amgrieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be good toyou.'

'I hope Time,' said I, looking at her, 'will be good to all of us.Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviestmisfortunes.'

The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her. Thewhole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and change.

I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it trembled.She repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low tone. Then,addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness:

'My son is ill.'

'Very ill.'

'You have seen him?'

'I have.'

'Are you reconciled?'

I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her headtowards the spot where Rosa Dartle had been standing at her elbow, andin that moment I said, by the motion of my lips, to Rosa, 'Dead!'

That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and read,plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met her lookquickly; but I had seen Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in the air withvehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them on her face.

The handsome lady--so like, oh so like!--regarded me with a fixed look,and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm, and prepareherself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather have entreatedher to weep, for she sat like a stone figure.

'When I was last here,' I faltered, 'Miss Dartle told me he was sailinghere and there. The night before last was a dreadful one at sea. If hewere at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, as it is said hewas; and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship which--'

'Rosa!' said Mrs. Steerforth, 'come to me!'

She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed like fireas she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh.

'Now,' she said, 'is your pride appeased, you madwoman? Now has he madeatonement to you--with his life! Do you hear?---His life!'

Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no soundbut a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare.

'Aye!' cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, 'look atme! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here!' striking the scar, 'atyour dead child's handiwork!'

The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to My heart. Alwaysthe same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied withan incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. Alwaysproceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw werelocked and the face frozen up in pain.

'Do you remember when he did this?' she proceeded. 'Do you rememberwhen, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of hispride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me,marked until I die with his high displeasure; and moan and groan forwhat you made him!'

'Miss Dartle,' I entreated her. 'For Heaven's sake--'

'I WILL speak!' she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. 'Besilent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud, false son! Moanfor your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for yourloss of him, moan for mine!'

She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, asif her passion were killing her by inches.

'You, resent his self-will!' she exclaimed. 'You, injured by his haughtytemper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, the qualitieswhich made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who from his cradle rearedhim to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are yourewarded, now, for your years of trouble?'

'Oh, Miss Dartle, shame! Oh cruel!'

'I tell you,' she returned, 'I WILL speak to her. No power on earthshould stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent all theseyears, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better than you ever lovedhim!' turning on her fiercely. 'I could have loved him, and asked noreturn. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of hiscaprices for a word of love a year. I should have been. Who knows itbetter than I? You were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My lovewould have been devoted--would have trod your paltry whimpering underfoot!'

With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually didit.

'Look here!' she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand.'When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he sawit, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and showthe ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to suchknowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he wasfreshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, he did! Many a time, when youwere put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart!'

She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy--for itwas little less--yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which thesmouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment.

'I descended--as I might have known I should, but that he fascinated mewith his boyish courtship--into a doll, a trifle for the occupationof an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as theinconstant humour took him. When he grew weary, I grew weary. As hisfancy died out, I would no more have tried to strengthen any power Ihad, than I would have married him on his being forced to take me forhis wife. We fell away from one another without a word. Perhaps you sawit, and were not sorry. Since then, I have been a mere disfigured pieceof furniture between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings,no remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you made him; not for your love. Itell you that the time was, when I loved him better than you ever did!'

She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and theset face; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than ifthe face had been a picture.

'Miss Dartle,' said I, 'if you can be so obdurate as not to feel forthis afflicted mother--'

'Who feels for me?' she sharply retorted. 'She has sown this. Let hermoan for the harvest that she reaps today!'

'And if his faults--' I began.

'Faults!' she cried, bursting into passionate tears. 'Who dares malignhim? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he stooped!'

'No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearerremembrance than I,' I replied. 'I meant to say, if you have nocompassion for his mother; or if his faults--you have been bitter onthem--'

'It's false,' she cried, tearing her black hair; 'I loved him!'

'--if his faults cannot,' I went on, 'be banished from your remembrance,in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have never seenbefore, and render it some help!'

All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable.Motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time totime, with the same helpless motion of the head; but giving no othersign of life. Miss Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, and began toloosen the dress.

'A curse upon you!' she said, looking round at me, with a mingledexpression of rage and grief. 'It was in an evil hour that you ever camehere! A curse upon you! Go!'

After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, thesooner to alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive figurein her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it,calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, andtrying every tender means to rouse the dormant senses. No longer afraidof leaving her, I noiselessly turned back again; and alarmed the houseas I went out.

Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother's room. Shewas just the same, they told me; Miss Dartle never left her; doctorswere in attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay like astatue, except for the low sound now and then.

I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The windowsof the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up the leadenhand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed death andsilence, broken only by his mother's moaning.