They broke open the door, and saw him lying on the sofa.

They went close to look--and found him dead by his own hand.
VIII.
Drawing fast to its close, the Prologue reverts to the two girls--and tells, in a few words, how the years passed with Anne and Blanche.
Lady Lundie more than redeemed the solemn pledge that she had given to her friend.

Preserved from every temptation which might lure her into a longing to follow her mother's career; trained for a teacher's life, with all the arts and all the advantages that money could procure, Anne's first and only essays as a governess were made, under Lady Lundie's own roof, on Lady Lundie's own child.

The difference in the ages of the girls--seven years--the love between them, which seemed, as time went on, to grow with their growth, favored the trial of the experiment.

In the double relation of teacher and friend to little Blanche, the girlhood of Anne Silvester the younger passed safely, happily, uneventfully, in the modest sanctuary of home.