THREE:Joseph Backfield had been dead twelve hours. His wife had gone, worn out with her grief, to rest on the narrow unaccustomed bed which had been put up in the next room when he grew too ill to have her at his side. Reuben knew that Harry was with herHarry would be sitting at her head, his arm under the pillow, ready for that miserable first waking, when remembering and forgetting would be fused into one pain. Reuben knew that they did not need him, that they had all they wanted in each othernow, as during the nights and days of illness, when he had never felt as if he had any real link with those three, his father and mother and Harry.Tilly's blood ran thick with disgust; she turned from them suddenlythat coarse, bloodthirsty, revolting pairand ran quickly out of the room.
