Their father had just come in. Mr. Barton can
remember his staggering into the room. I'll give it in his words.
'Mother, have you got anything in the house?' 'Nothing, Tom.' And mother
began to cry. 'Not a bit of bread, mother?' 'I gave the last bit to the
children for their teas.' Father said nothing, but he lay down on the
bed. Then he called me. 'Johnnie,' he said, 'I've got work--for next
week--but I sha'n't never go to it--it's too late,' and then he asked me
to hold his hand, and turned his face on the pillow. When my mother came
to look, he was dead. 'Starvation and exhaustion'--the doctor said."
Marion Vincent paused.
"It's just like any other story of the kind--isn't it?" Her smile turned
on Diana. "The charitable societies and missions send them out by scores
in their appeals. But somehow as he told it just now, down-stairs, in
that glaring hall, with the champagne going round--it seemed
intolerable."
"And you mean also"--said Diana, slowly--"that a man with that history
can't know or care very much about the Empire?"
"Our minds are all picture-books," said the woman beside her, in a low,
dreamy voice: "it depends upon what the pictures are.
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