Comfort in Sorrow

Margaret felt as if she had no business to be there, familiarly
acquainting herself with the surroundings of death which he, the
father, had only just learnt. There had been a pause of an
instant on the steep crooked stair, when she first saw him; but
now she tried to steal past his abstracted gaze, and to leave him
in the solemn circle of his household misery.

Mary sat down on the first chair she came to, and throwing her
apron over her head, began to cry.

The noise appeared to rouse him. He took sudden hold of
Margaret's arm, and held her till he could gather words to speak
seemed dry; they came up thick, and choked, and hoarse:

'Were yo' with her? Did yo' see her die?' 'No!' replied Margaret, standing still with the utmost patience,
now she found herself perceived. It was some time before he spoke
again, but he kept his hold on her arm.

'All men must die,' said he at last, with a strange sort of
gravity, which first suggested to Margaret the idea that he had
been drinking--not enough to intoxicate himself, but enough to
make his thoughts bewildered. 'But she were younger than me.'
Still he pondered over the event, not looking at Margaret, though
he grasped her tight. Suddenly, he looked up at her with a wild
searching inquiry in his glance. 'Yo're sure and certain she's
dead--not in a dwam, a faint?--she's been so before, often.'