Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/104

 night,' as seen from the house of Grinder―'Grinderville'―with its moonlit terraces and gardens sloping gently to the water, and its windows lit up for an Easter ball, and its reception-rooms thronged by its own exclusive set, and one of its charming and accomplished daughters melting a select party to tears by her pathetic recitation about a little crossing sweeper.

There was something wrong with the alarm-clock, or else Mrs. Aspinall had made a mistake, for the gong sounded startlingly in the dead of night. She woke with a painful start, and lay still, expecting to hear Arvie get up; but he made no sign. She turned a white, frightened face towards the sofa where he lay―the light from the alley's solitary lamp on the pavement above shone down through the window, and she saw that he had not moved.

Why didn't the clock wake him? He was such a light sleeper! 'Arvie!' she called; no answer. 'Arvie!' she called again, with a strange ring of remonstrance mingling with the terror in her voice. Arvie never answered.

'Oh! my God!' she moaned.

She rose and stood by the sofa. Arvie lay on his back with his arms folded―a favourite sleeping position of his; but his eyes were wide open and staring upwards as though they would stare through ceiling and roof to the place where God ought to be.

He was dead.

'My God! My God!' she cried.