Had immediate assistance been at hand the calamity might have been averted, but neither the coachman nor footman was aware of what had happened till the carriage was some distance on its homeward journey, and a passer-by caught sight of the senseless figure within.

They promptly drove him to the nearest hospital, and telegraphed the news to Garden Vale; but Mr Cruden never recovered consciousness, and, as the doctor told Horace, before even the message could have reached its destination he was dead.
We may draw a veil over the sad scenes of the few days which followed-- of the meeting of the widow and her sons at the bedside of the dead, of the removal of the loved remains home, of the dismal preparations for the funeral, and all the dreary details which occupy mourners in the house of death.

For some time Mrs Cruden, prostrated by the shock of her bereavement, was unable to leave her room, and the burden of the care fell on the two inexperienced boys, who had to face it almost single-handed.
For the Crudens had no near relatives in England, and those of their friends who might have been of service at such a time feared to intrude, and so stayed away.

Blandford and Harker, the boys' two friends who had been visiting at Garden Vale at the time of Mr Cruden's death, had left as quietly and considerately as possible; and so great was the distraction of those few sad days that no one even noticed their absence till letters of condolence arrived from each.
It was a dreary week, and Reginald, on whom, as the elder son and the heir to the property, the chief responsibility rested, was of the two least equal to the emergency.
"I don't know what I should have done without you, old man," said he to Horace on the evening before the funeral, when, all the preparations being ended, the two boys strolled dismally down towards the river.
"You ought to have been the eldest son.

I should never have thought of half the things there were to be done if you hadn't been here." "Of course, mother would have known what was to be done," said Horace, "if she hadn't been laid up.