HOW SPARROWS GORMANDISE. DAVE'S CISTERN. DOLLY AND JONES'S BULL. THE LETTER HAD DONE IT. HOW TOM KETTERING DROVE WIDOW THRALE TO DENBY'S FARM, AND MAISIE WOKE UP. HOW DAVE ATE TOO MANY MULBERRIES. OLD JASPER. OLD GOSSET AND CULLODEN. HIS TOES. HOW MAISIE ASKED TO SEE THE OLD MODEL AGAIN, AND HAD IT OUT BESIDE THE BED. DID IT GO ROUND, OR WAS DAVE MISTAKEN? THE GLASS WATER, AND HOW MAISIE HAD BROKEN A PIECE OFF, SEVENTY YEARS AGO. HOW A RATCHET-SPRING STRUCK WORK. WAS IT TOBY OR TOFT? BARNABY. BRAINTREE. ST. PAUL'S. BARNABY'S CO-RESPONDENCE. OLD CHIPSTONE. HOW PHOEBE NEARLY LOST HER EYE. OLD MARTHA PRICHARD. A REVERIE OF GWEN'S, ENDING IN LAZARUS. MAISIE'S PURSE

Has it ever been your lot—you who read this—to be told that Life is ebbing, slowly, slowly, every clock-tick telling on the hours that are left before the end—the end of all that has made your fellow in the flesh more than an image and a name? In so many hours, so many minutes, that image as it was will be vanishing, that name will be a memory. All that made either of them ours to love or hate, to be thought of as friend or foe, will have ceased for all time—for all the time we anticipate; more, or less as may be, than Oblivion's period, named in her pact with Destiny. In so many hours, so many minutes, that unseen mystery, the thing we call our friend's, our foe's, own self will make no sign to show that this is he. And we shall determine that he is no more, or agree that he has departed, much as we have been taught to think, but little as we have learned to know.

If you yourself have outlived other lives, and yet borne the foreknowledge of Death unmoved, you will not understand why Gwen's heart within her, when she heard Dr. Nash's words and took their meaning, should be likened to a great stifled sob, nor why she had to summon all her powers afield to bear arms against her tears. They came at her call, and fought so well that the enemy had fled before she had to show dry eyes, and speak with normal voice, to Ruth Thrale, who came in to say that her mother was asking for her ladyship. Come what might, she must keep her gloomy knowledge from Ruth.

"What a fuss about old me!" says the voice from the pillow, speaking low, but with happy contentment. "Would not anyone think I was dying?"

Now, if only Dr. Nash would have kept those prophecies to himself, Gwen would have thought her better. She could have discounted the weakness, or laid it down to imperfect nourishment. She could not trust herself to much speech, saying only:—"We shall have you walking about soon, and what will the doctor say then?"

She looked across at the old sister, grave and silent, whom she had supposed unoppressed, so far, by medical verdicts. But the invitation of a smile she achieved, mechanically, to help towards incredulity of Death, only met a half-response. "Indeed, my lady," said Granny Marrable, "we shall have some time to wait for that, if she will still eat nothing. A sparrow could not live upon the little food she takes."

What was old Maisie saying? She could live on less than a sparrow's food—that was the upshot. The sparrow was a greedy little bird, and she had seen him gormandise in Sapps Court. "My darling Dave and Dolly," she said, "would feed them, on the leads at the back, out of my bedroom window, where the cistern is." Gwen perceived the source of a misapprehension of Dave's.

"He's to come here," said she. "Him and Dolly. And then they can feed the cocks and hens."

"When I'm up," said old Maisie. She had no misgivings.

"When you're up."

"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull?"

"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull."

"But not Dolly, because she would be frightened."

"Not Dolly, then. Dolly is small, to see Bulls." Old Maisie closed her eyes upon this, and enjoyed the thought of Dave's rapture at that appalling Bull.

Granny Marrable indicated by two glances, one at Gwen, the other at the white face on the pillow, that her sister might sleep, given silence. Gwen watched for the slackening of the hand that held hers, to get gently free. Old Phoebe did the same, and drew the bed-curtain noiselessly, to hide the window-light. Both stole away, leaving what might have been an alabaster image, scarcely breathing, on the bed.

"It is the letter that has done it. Oh, how unfortunate!" So Gwen spoke, to the Granny, in the kitchen: for Ruth, though attending to the Sunday dinner, was for the moment absent. So the letter could be referred to.

"I fear what your ladyship says is true."

"But at least we know what it is that has done it. That is something." Granny Marrable seemed slow to understand. "I mean, if it had not been for the letter, she certainly need not have been any worse than she was last Sunday. She was getting on so well, Ruth said, on Friday, after the champagne. Oh dear!"

"It will be as God wills, my lady. If my dear sister is again to be taken from me...."

"Oh, Granny, do not let us talk like that!" But Gwen could put little heart into her protest. The doctor had taken all the wind out of her sails.

Old Phoebe let the interruption pass. "If Maisie dies.... said she, and stopped.

"If Maisie dies...?" said Gwen, and waited.

The answer came, but not at once. "It is the second time."

"I don't think I quite understand, Granny," said Gwen gently. Which was meant, that this made it easier to bear, or harder?

"I am slow to speak what I think, my lady. I would like to find words to say it.... I lost Maisie forty-five—yes!—forty-six years ago, and the grief of her loss is with me still. Had she died here, near at hand, so I might have known where they laid her, I would have kept fresh flowers on her grave till now. But she was dead, far away across the sea. I am too old now for what has come of it. But I can see what-like it all is. Maisie is with me again, from the tomb—for a little while, and then to go. She will go first, and I shall soon follow; it cannot be long. No—it cannot be long! The light will come. And God be praised for His goodness! We shall lie in one grave, Maisie and I. We shall not be parted in Death." These last words Gwen accepted as conventional. She listened, somewhat as in a dream, to Granny Marrable's voice, going quietly on, with no very audible undertone of pain in it:—"It is not of myself I am thinking, but my child. She has found her mother, and loved her, before she knew it was herself, risen from the grave.... Oh no—no—no, my lady, I know it all well. My head is right. Maisie has been at hand these long years past, all unknown to me—oh, how cruelly unknown!" Here her words broke a little, with audible pain. "Her coming to us has been a resurrection from the tomb. It is little to me now, I am so near the end. But my heart goes out to my child, who will lose her mother.... Hush, she is coming back!"

The thought in Gwen's heart was:—"Pity me too, Granny, for I too—I, with all the wealth of the world at my feet!—shall feel a heartstring snap when this frail old waif and stray, so strangely found by me in a London slum, so strangely brought back by me into your life again, has passed away into the unknown." For she had scarcely been alive till now to the whole of her mysterious affection for dear old Mrs. Picture.

Ruth Thrale came back, and the day went on. Old Maisie remained asleep, sleeping as the effigy sleeps upon a tomb, but always with regular breath, barely sensible, and the same slow pulse. Now and again it might have seemed that breath had ceased. But it was not so. If the powers of life were on the wane, it was very slowly.

Tom Kettering returned at the appointed time, to a minute, and took no notice of his own arrival beyond socketing his whip in its stall, in token of its abdication. He had been told to come and wait, and he proceeded to wait, sine die. Gwen interrupted him in this employment, by coming out to tell him that she was stopping on, and that he was to go back to the Towers and say so. He looked so depressed at this that she bethought her of a compensation. She knew that Ruth Thrale had cause for anxiety about her own daughter; and, so far as could be seen, her immediate presence was not necessary, for no change appeared imminent. So she persuaded, or half-commanded, Ruth to be driven over to Denby's Farm by Tom Kettering, to remain there two or three hours, and be brought back by him or otherwise, as might be convenient. Her son-in-law might drive her back, and Tom might return to the Towers. It would make her mind easier to see Maisie junior, and get a forecast of probabilities at the farm. Ruth was not hard to prevail upon to do this, and was driven away by Tom over slushy roads, through the irresolute Winter's unseasonable Christmas Eve, after delegating some of her functions to Elizabeth-next-door.

Old Maisie still remained asleep, and almost motionless. With some help from Elizabeth-next-door the perfunctory midday meal had been served, very little more than looked at, and cleared away; then the motionless figure on the bed stirred visibly, breathed almost audibly. At this time of the day vitality is at its best, with most of us. Gwen, standing by the bedside, saw the lips move, and, bending forward, heard speech.

When she said, a moment after:—"I think I must have been asleep. I'm awake now,"—she uttered the words much as Gwen had always heard her speak. Yet another moment, and she said:—"I was dreaming, Phoebe dear, dreaming of our mill. And I was asking for you in my dream. Because Dave was up in our mulberry-tree, and wouldn't come down." She showed how perfectly clear her head was, by saying to Gwen:—"My dear, if I could have kept asleep, I would have seen Phoebe young again. You would never think how young she was then."

Gwen felt that she was nowise bound to dwell on the futility of dreams, and said, as she caressed the old hand's weak hold on her own:—"Was Dave eating too many mulberries in that tree?"

Old Maisie smiled happily at the thought of Dave. "His hands were quite purple with the juice," she said. "But he wouldn't come down, and went on eating the mulberries. It was the tree by itself behind the house, near the big hole where the sunflowers grew."

Granny Marrable's memory spanned the chasm—seventy years or so! "The biggest mulberry," she said, "was Old Jasper, in the front garden, near the wall.... It was always called Old Jasper." This replied to a look of Gwen's. Why should a mulberry-tree be called Old Jasper? Well—why should anything be called anything?

"I can smell the honeysuckle," said old Mrs. Picture. And her face looked quite serene and happy. "But the pigeons used to get all the mulberries on that tree, because they were close by."

"It stood by itself," said Granny Marrable. "And all the fruit-trees were in the orchard. So old Gosset with the wooden leg was always on that side with his clapper, never out in front."

"Old Gosset—who lost his leg at the battle of Culloden! I remember him so well. He said he could feel his toes all the same as if they was ten. He said it broke his heart to see the many cherries the birds got, for all the noise he made. He said they got bold, when they found he had a wooden leg...." She paused, hesitating, and then asked for Ruth.

Gwen told her how Ruth had gone to her own daughter, who was married, and how a second grandchild was overdue. In telling this, she feared she might not be understood. So she was pleased to hear old Mrs. Picture say quite clearly:—"Oh, but I know. A long while ago—my child—my Ruth—when she was Widow Thrale ... told me all that...."

"Yes, yes!" Gwen struck in. "I know. When you were here at the cottage, before.... she hesitated.

"Yes, before," said old Mrs. Picture. "When she showed me our old model, and did not know. That was the time she thought me mad. Phoebe—I want you ... I want you...." Her voice was getting weaker; as it would do, after much talking.

"What?—I wonder!" said Granny Marrable, and waited.

Gwen guessed. "You want to see the old model again? Is that it?" Yes, she did. That was a good guess.

"Maisie dearest, I will fetch you the model to the bedside, and light candles, so you shall see it. Only you will eat something first—to please me—to please my lady—will you not? Then you may be able to sit up, you know, and look at it." Granny Marrable jumped at the opportunity to get some food—ever so little—down her sister's throat. She had not given up hope of her reviving, if only for a while. Bear in mind that she was still in the dark about the doctor's real opinion.

The attempt at refection had a poor show of success, its only triumph worth mentioning being the exhibition of a driblet of champagne in milk. Almost before the patient had swallowed it, she had fallen back on her pillow in a drowsy half-sleep, with what seemed an increased colour, to eyes that were on the watch for it. She remained so until after the doctor's visit at six o'clock.

The doctor admitted that she had picked up a very little, and when she awoke would probably have another spell of brightness. But.... Speaking with Gwen alone on his way out, he ended on this monosyllable.

"What does that 'but' mean, doctor?"

"Means that you mustn't expect too much. I suppose you know that the mildest stimulant means reaction."

"I don't know that I ever thought about it, but I'll take your word for it."

"Well—you may. And you may take my word for this. When the vital powers are near their end—without disease, you know, without disease...."

"I know. She has nothing the matter with her."

"You can intensify vitality for a moment. But the reaction will come, and must hasten the end. You might halve the outstanding time of Life by doubling the vitality. If you employ any artificial stimulant, you only use up the heart-beats that are left. The upshot of it is—don't go beyond a tablespoonful twice a day with that liquor."

"I don't suppose she has had so much."

"Well—don't go beyond it. There is always the possibility—the bare possibility, even at eighty—of a definite revival. But...."

"But, again, doctor!"

"But again! Let it stop at that. I shall do no better by saying more. If I foresaw ... anything—within the next twelve hours, I would stay on to see your ladyship through. But there is nothing to go by. Quite impossible to predict!"

"Why do you say 'to see me through'? Why not her sister and daughter?"

"Because they are her sister and daughter. It's all in their day's work. Good-night, Lady Gwendolen." Gwen watched the doctor's gig down the road into the darkness, and saw that a man riding stopped him, as though to give a message. After which she thought he whipped up his pony, which also felt the influence of the rider's cob alongside, and threw off its usual apathy.

Old Maisie must have waked up just as the doctor departed, for there were voices in the bedroom, and Granny Marrable was coming out. The old lady had an end in view. She was bent on getting down the mill-model from over the fireplace. "My dear sister has a great fancy to see it once more," she said. "And I would be loth to say nay to her." Gwen said:—"Anything to keep her mind off that brute of a son!" And then between them they got the model down, and unwrapped the cloth from it. Elizabeth-next-door, coming in at this moment, left Gwen free to go back to old Maisie in the bedroom, who seemed roused to expectation. The doctor was clearly wrong, and all was going to be well. Mrs. Picture was not quite herself again, perhaps; but was mending.

"My dear, I am giving a world of trouble," she said. "But Phoebe is so kind, to take every little word I say."

"She likes doing it, Mrs. Picture dear. We've got down the mill to show you, and she will get it in here by the bed, so that you shall see without getting up. Elizabeth from next door is there to help her." So the mill-model, that had so much to answer for, was got out from behind its glass, and placed on the little table beside the bed.

Old Maisie's voice had rallied so much that surely her power of movement should have done so too. But no!—she could not raise herself in bed. It was an easy task to place her to the best advantage, but the sense of her helplessness was painful to Gwen, who raised her like a child with scarcely an effort, while Granny Marrable multiplied pillows to support her. The slightest attempt on her part towards movement would have been reassuring, but none came.

"I wonder now," she said vaguely. "Was it only Dave?"

"What about Dave, dear? What did Dave say?"

"Was it Dave who said it went round? I had the thought it went round. Which was it?"

"I showed it to Dave," said Granny Marrable, "and then it went, the same as new. I could try it again, only then I must take out the glass water, and put in real. And wind it up."

Old Mrs. Picture almost laughed, and the pleasure in her voice was good to hear. "Why, now I have it all back!" she said. "And there is father! Oh, Phoebe, do you remember how angry father was with me for breaking a piece off the glass water?"

Granny Marrable was looking for something, in the penetralia of the model. "Oh, I know," said she. "It's in behind the glass water.... I was looking for the piece.... I'll take the glass water out." She did so, and its missing fraction was found, stowed away behind the main cataract, a portion of which appeared to have stopped dead in mid-air.

"Oh, Phoebe darling," said old Maisie, "we can have it mended."

"Of course we can," said Gwen. "Do let us make it go round. I want to make it go round, too." Her heart was rejoicing at what seemed so like revival.

Granny Marrable poured water into what stood for "the sleepy pool above the dam," and found the key to wind up the clockwork. "I remember," said old Maisie, "the water first, and then the key!" Her face was as happy as Dave's had been, watching it.

But alas for the uncertainty of all things human!—machinery particularly. The key ran back as fast as it was wound up, and the water slept on above the dam. What a disappointment! "Oh dear," said Gwen, "it's gone wrong. Couldn't we find a man in the village who could set it right, though it is Sunday?" No—certainly not at eight o'clock in the evening.

"I fear, my lady," said Granny Marrable, "that it was injured when the little boy Toby aimed a chestnut at it. And had I known of the damage done, I should have allowed him no sugar in his tea. But it may have been Toft, when he repaired the glass, for indeed he is little better than a heathen." She examined it and tried the key again. It was hopeless.

"Never mind, Phoebe dearest! I would have loved to see the millwheel turn again, as it did in the old days. Now we must wait for it to be put to rights. I shall see it one day." If she felt that she was sinking, she did not show it. She went on speaking at intervals. "Let me lie here and look at it.... Yes, put the candle near.... That was the deep hole, below the wheel, where the fish leapt.... Father would not allow us near it, for the danger.... There were steps up, and so many nettles.... Then above we got to the big pool where the alders were ... where the herons came...." A pause; then:—"Phoebe dearest!..."

"What, darling?"

"I was not mad.... You were not here, or you would have known me.... Would you not?"

"I would have known you, Maisie dearest—I would have known you, in time. Not at the first. But when I came to think of it, would I have dared to say the word?"

Gwen remembered this answer of old Phoebe's later, and saw its reasonableness. She only saw the practical side at the moment. "Why, Granny," she said—"if it hadn't been the mill, it would have been something else."

"But I was not mad," Maisie continued. "Only I must have frightened my Ruth.... I went up there once, Phoebe. Barnaby took me up one day...."

"Up where, Mrs. Picture dear?" Gwen left the old right hand free to show her meaning, but it fell back after a languid effort. The strength was near zero, though no one would have guessed it from the voice.

"Up there—in the roof—where the trap comes out.... Phoebe would not come, because of the dust.... It was so hot too.... Barnaby pulled up a flour-sack, to show me, and would have let me out on the trap, only I was frightened, it was so high! I could see all the way over to Braintree.... And Barnaby said on a clear day you could see St. Paul's.... I liked Barnaby—I disliked old Muggeridge.... Do you know, Phoebe dear, I used to think Barnaby's wife was old Muggeridge's sister, because her name had been Muggeridge?"

Old Phoebe threw light on the affair. Barnaby's wife was young Mrs. Muggeridge, who had exchanged into another regiment—was not really Barnaby's wife! that is to say, not his legal wife.

"But there now!" said old Phoebe, when she had ended this, "if that was not the very first of it all with me, when Dr. Nash he set me a-thinking, by telling of Muggeridge! For how would I ever have said a word of that old sinner to our little Dave?"

Old Maisie's attention was still on the mill-model. "You would not come up into the corn-loft, Phoebe," said she, "because of all the white dust. It was on everything, up there. When I went up with Barnaby the mill was not going, because the stones were out for old Chipstone to dress their faces. His real name was not Chipstone, but Chepstow. He could do two stones in one day, he worked so quick. So both were got out when he came, and the mill was stopped. Oh, Phoebe, do you remember when a chip flew in your eye, you were so bad?"

"Now, to think of that!" said Granny Marrable. "And me clean forgot it all these years! Old Chipstone, with glasses to shelter his eyesight; like blinkers on a horse. 'Tis all come back to me now, like last week. And I might have been a one-eyed girl all my days, the doctor said, only the chip just came a little out of true. To think that all these years I have forgotten it, and never thanked God once!"

"'Tis the sight of the mill brings it all back," said old Maisie. "I mind it so well, and the guy you looked, dear Phoebe, with a bandage to keep out the light. It was wolfsbane did it good, beat up in water quite fine."

"Be sure. Only 'twas none of Dr. Adlam's remedies, I lay.... Wasn't it Martha's—our old Martha?... There, now!—I've let go her name.... 'Twas on the tip of my tongue to say it...."

Old Maisie's voice was getting faint as she said:—"Old Martha Prichard ... the name I go by now, Phoebe darling.... I took it to ... to keep a memory...."

She was speaking in such a dying voice that Gwen struck in to put an end to her exerting it. "I see what you mean," she said. "You mean you took the name to bring back old times. Now be quiet and rest, dear! You are talking more than is good for you. Indeed you are!"

Thereon Granny Marrable, though she had never felt clear about the reason of this change of name, and now thought she saw enlightenment ahead, followed in compliance with what she conceived to be Lady Gwendolen's wishes. "Now you rest quiet, Maisie dearest, as her ladyship says. What would Dr. Nash think of such a talking?"

Ruth might not be back till very late, and as she had not reappeared it might be taken for granted she had stayed to sup with her daughter. Gwen suggested rather timidly—for it was going outside her beat—that the grandchild might have chosen its birthday. The Granny said, with a curious certainty, that there was no likelihood of that for a day or two yet, and went to summon Elizabeth from next door, to help with their own supper. She herself was rather old and slow, she said, in matters of house-service.

Gwen was not sorry to be left for a while to her own reflections before the smouldering red log on the kitchen fire.

The great bulldog from the lobby without, as though his courtesy could not tolerate such a distinguished guest being left alone, paid her a visit in her hostess's absence. He showed his consciousness of her identity by licking her hand at once. He would have smelt a stranger carefully all round before bestowing such an honour. Gwen addressed a few words to him of appreciation, and expressed her confidence in his integrity. He seemed pleased, and discovered a suitable attitude at her feet, after consideration of several. He looked up from his forepaws, on which his chin rested, with an expression that might have meant anything respectful, from civility to adoration. The cat, with her usual hypocrisy, came outside her fender to profess that she had been on Gwen's side all along, whatever the issue. Her method of explaining this was the sort that trips you up—that curls round your ankles and purrs. The cricket was too preoccupied to enter into the affairs of fussy, uncontinuous mortals, and the kettle was cool and detached, but ready to act when called on. The steady purpose of the clock, from which nothing but its own key could turn it, was to strike nine next, and the cloth was laid for supper. Supper was ready for incarnation, somewhere, and smelt of something that would have appealed to Dave, but had no charm for Gwen.

For she was sick at heart, and the moment that a pause left her free to admit it, heavy-eyed from an outcrop of head-oppression on the lids. It might have come away in tears, but her tissues grudged an outlet. She saw no balm in Gilead, but she could sit on a little in the silence, for rest. She could hear the voices of the two old sisters through the doors, and knew that Mrs. Picture was again awake, and talking. That was well!—leave them to each other, for all the time that might still be theirs, this side the grave.

What a whirl of strange unprecedented excitements had been hers since ... since when? Thought stopped to ask the question. Could she name the beginning of it all? Yes, plainly enough. It all began, for her, at the end of that long rainy day in July, when the sunset flamed upon the Towers, and she saw a trespasser in the Park, with a dog. She could feel again the unscrupulous paws of Achilles on her bosom, could hear his master's indignant voice calling him off, and then could see those beautiful dark eyes fixed on what their owner could not dream was his for ever, but which those eyes might never see again. She could watch the retiring figure, striding away through the bracken, and wonder that she should have stood there without a thought of the future. Why could she not have seized him and held him in her arms, and baffled all the cruelty of Fate? For was he not, even then, hers—hers—hers beyond a doubt? Could she not see now that her heart had said "I love you" even as he looked up from that peccant dog-collar, the source of all the mischief?

That was what began it. It was that which led her to stay with her cousin in Cavendish Square, and to a certain impatience with conventional "social duties," making her welcome as a change in excitements an excursion or two into unexplored regions, of which Sapps Court was to be the introductory sample. It was that which had brought into her life this sweet old woman with the glorious hair. No wonder she loved her! She never thought of her engrossing affection as strange or to be wondered at. That it should have been bestowed on the twin sister of an old villager in her father's little kingdom in Rocestershire was where the miracle came in.

And such a strange story as the one she had disinterred and brought to a climax! And then, when all might have gone so well—when a very few years of peace might have done so much to heal the lifelong wounds of the two souls so cruelly wrenched apart half a century ago, that the frail earthly tenement of the one should be too dilapidated to give its tenant shelter! So small an extension of the lease of life would have made such a difference.

But if it was hard for her to bear, what would it be to the survivor, the old sister who had borne so bravely and well what seemed to Gwen almost harder to endure than a loss; a resurrection from the tomb, or its equivalent? She had often shuddered to think what the family of Lazarus must have felt; and found no ease from the reflection that they were in the Bible and it was quite a different thing. They did not know they were in the Bible.

She helped the parallel a little farther, while the cricket chirped unmoved. Suppose that Lazarus had died again in earnest from the shock—and suppose, too, please, that he was deeply beloved, which may not have been the case! How would the wife, mother, sisters, who had said one farewell to him, have borne to see him die a second time? Of course, Gwen was alive to the fact that it would be bad religious form to suggest that this contingency was not covered by some special arrangement. But put it as an hypothesis, like the lady she had ascribed Adrian's ring to!

She could hear Granny Marrable's voice and Elizabeth's afar, in conference. That was satisfactory. It made her certain that the slightest sound from old Maisie, so much nearer, would reach her. Her door stood wide, and the other door was just ajar.

But she did not hear the slightest sound. The dog did, for he flashed into sudden vitality and attention, and was out of the room in an instant. He was unable to say to Granny Marrable:—"I heard your invalid move in the bedroom, and I think you had better go and see if she wants you," but he must have gone very near it. For Gwen heard the old lady's step come quicker than her wont along the passage, and she reached the kitchen-door just in time to see her pass into the room opposite. "Is she all right?" she said.

"I hope she is still asleep, my lady," said old Phoebe.

But she was not asleep, and said so. Her voice was clear, and the hand Gwen took—so she thought—closed on hers with a greater strength than before. If only she had stirred in bed, it would have seemed a return of living power. But this slight vitality in the hands alone seemed to count for so little. She wanted something, evidently, and both her nurses tried to get a clue to it. It was not food; though, to please them, she promised to take some. Gwen's thought that possibly she had something for her ear alone—which she had hesitated to communicate to old Phoebe—was confirmed when the latter left the room to get the beef-tea, and so forth, which was always within reach if needed. For old Maisie said plainly:—"Now I can tell you—my dear!"

"What about, dear Mrs. Picture?" said Gwen, caressing the hand she held, and smoothing back the silver locks from the grave grey eyes so earnestly fixed on hers. "Tell me what."

"My son," said old Maisie. "I have a son, have I not?"—this in a frightened way, as though again in doubt of her own sanity—"and he is bad, is he not, and has written me a letter?"

"That's all right. I've got the letter, to show to my father."

"Oh yes—do show it—to the old gentleman I saw. He is your father...."

"You would like to say something about your son, dear Mrs. Picture—something we can do for you. Now try and tell me just what you would like."

"I want you, my dear, to find me my purse out of the other watch-pocket. I asked my Ruth to put it there.... She is Widow Thrale ... is she not?" Every effort at thought of her surroundings was a strain to her mind, plainly enough.

"There it is!" said Gwen. "Soon found!... Now, am I to see how much money you've got in it?"

"Yes, please!" It was an old knitted silk purse with a slip-ring. In the early fifties the leather purses with snaps, that leak at the seam and let half-sovereigns through before you find it out, were rare in the pockets of old people.

"Six new pounds, and one, two, three, four shillings in silver, and two sixpences, and one fourpence, and a halfpenny! Shall I keep it for you, to be safe?"

"No, dear! I want—I want....

"I hope," thought Gwen to herself, "she's not going to have it sent to her execrable son. Yes, dear, what is it you want done with it?"

"I want three of the pounds to go to Susan Burr, for her to pay eight weeks of the rent. It's seven-and-sixpence a week."

"And the rest—shall I keep it?"

"Tell me—my son Ralph's letter ... Did it not say that he wanted money?"

"Yes, it did. But I'm going to see about that—I and my father."

Old Maisie's voice became beseeching, gaining strength from earnestness. "Oh my dear—do let me! And, after all, is it not his money? For I had nothing of my own when I came back. I might have gone to the workhouse, but for him." What followed, disjointedly, was an attempt to tell the portion of her story that related to the miscarriage of her husband's will.

"Very well, dear! It shall all be done as you wish it. I'll see to that. The money shall be sent to Aunt M'riar, at Sapps Court, to give to him."

"Why is it Aunt M'riar, at Sapps Court? I know Aunt M'riar." Do what she would, she could not grapple with these relativities. And, indeed, this one was a mystery she could not have solved in any case.