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He's at the barn."

Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from the post office,

started at once for the doctor, calling at Orchard Slope on his way to

send Mr. and Mrs. Barry over. Mrs. Lynde, who was there on an errand,

came too. They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore

Matthew to consciousness.

Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid her

ear over his heart. She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and

the tears came into her eyes.

"Oh, Marilla," she said gravely. "I don't think--we can do anything for

him."

"Mrs. Lynde, you don't think--you can't think Matthew is--is--" Anne

could not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid.

"Child, yes, I'm afraid of it. Look at his face. When you've seen that

look as often as I have you'll know what it means."

Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the Great

Presence.

When the doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous and

probably painless, caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock. The

secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Matthew had held

and which Martin had brought from the office that morning. It contained

an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank.

The news spread quickly through Avonlea, and all day friends and

neighbors thronged Green Gables and came and went on errands of kindness

for the dead and living. For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Cuthbert

was a person of central importance; the white majesty of death had

fallen on him and set him apart as one crowned.

When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables the old house was

hushed and tranquil. In the parlor lay Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin,

his long gray hair framing his placid face on which there was a little

kindly smile as if he but slept, dreaming pleasant dreams. There were

flowers about him--sweet old-fashioned flowers which his mother had

planted in the homestead garden in her bridal days and for which Matthew

had always had a secret, wordless love. Anne had gathered them and

brought them to him, her anguished, tearless eyes burning in her white

face. It was the last thing she could do for him.

The Barrys and Mrs. Lynde stayed with them that night. Diana, going to

the east gable, where Anne was standing at her window, said gently:

"Anne dear, would you like to have me sleep with you tonight?"

"Thank you, Diana." Anne looked earnestly into her friend's face. "I

think you won't misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone. I'm not

afraid. I haven't been alone one minute since it happened--and I want to

be. I want to be quite silent and quiet and try to realize it. I can't

realize it. Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can't be dead; and

the other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time and

I've had this horrible dull ache ever since."

Diana did not quite understand. Marilla's impassioned grief, breaking

all the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush,

she could comprehend better than Anne's tearless agony. But she went

away kindly, leaving Anne alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow.

Anne hoped that the tears would come in solitude. It seemed to her a

terrible thing that she could not shed a tear for Matthew, whom she had

loved so much and who had been so kind to her, Matthew who had walked

with her last evening at sunset and was now lying in the dim room below

with that awful peace on his brow. But no tears came at first, even when

she knelt by her window in the darkness and prayed, looking up to the

stars beyond the hills--no tears, only the same horrible dull ache of

misery that kept on aching until she fell asleep, worn out with the

day's pain and excitement.

In the night she awakened, with the stillness and the darkness about

her, and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave of

sorrow. She could see Matthew's face smiling at her as he had smiled

when they parted at the gate that last evening--she could hear his voice

saying, "My girl--my girl that I'm proud of." Then the tears came and

Anne wept her heart out. Marilla heard her and crept in to comfort her.

"There--there--don't cry so, dearie. It can't bring him back.

It--it--isn't right to cry so. I knew that today, but I couldn't help

it then. He'd always been such a good, kind brother to me--but God knows

best."

"Oh, just let me cry, Marilla," sobbed Anne. "The tears don't hurt me

like that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep your

arm round me--so. I couldn't have Diana stay, she's good and kind and

sweet--but it's not her sorrow--she's outside of it and she couldn't

come close enough to my heart to help me. It's our sorrow--yours and

mine. Oh, Marilla, what will we do without him?"