No one warned Dr.Letsom about it.

The aperture was covered with straw, and he, walking quickly across, fell through.

There was but one comfort--he did not suffer long.

His death was instantaneous; and on the bright June afternoon when he was to have taken little Madaline for a drive, he was carried home, through the sunlit streets, dead.
Margaret Dornham and the little child sat waiting for him when the sad procession stopped at the door.
"The doctor is dead!" was the cry from one to another.
A terrible pain shot through Margaret's head.

Dead! The kindly man, who had been her only friend, dead! Then perhaps the child would be taken from her, and she should see it no more! An impulse, for which she could hardly account, and for which she was hardly responsible, seized her.