About five o'clock
Overcome with the agony , she threw herself on the sofa in the sitting-room and lay quivering , with her face buried in the pillow , while Miss Morton sat beside her , stroking her hair and saying such feeble , soothing words as she might . It is always hard , and for ardent temperaments almost impossible , to hold the mind balanced in a state of suspense , yielding overmuch neither to hope nor to fear , under circumstances like these . As a relief to the torture which such a state of tension ends in causing , the mind at length , if it can not abandon itself to hope , embraces even despair . About five o'clock Miss Morton was startled by an exceeding bitter cry . Grace was sitting upon the sofa . `` Oh , Miss Morton ! '' she cried , bursting into tears which before she had not been able to shed , `` he is dead ! ''