"There's things that may happen to any on us, my lad," he said, "and some on 'em might happen to you. If it's Jem Haworth that's to lose, the other sha'n't gain, by George!" He had put the light out and lay in the darkness, and was so lying with this mood at work upon him when there came a timid summons on the door, and it opened and some one came in softly. He knew who it was, even before she spoke. "Jem," she said, "Jem, you're not asleep, my dear." "No," he answered. She came to the bed-side and stood there. "I--I couldn't sleep," she said. "Something's a little wrong with me. I'm gettin' foolish, an'--an' fearful. I felt as if you wasn't quite safe. I thought I'd come and speak to you." "You're out o' sorts," he answered. "You'll have to be looked after." "It's nothing but my foolish way," she replied. "You're very good to me--an' me so full of fancies. Would you--would you mind me a-kneelin' down an' sayin' a prayer here to myself as I used to when you was a boy, Jem? I think it'd do me good. Would you mind it?" "No," he answered hoarsely. "Kneel down." And she knelt and grasped for his hand and held it, and he heard her whispering in the dark as he had been wont to hear her nearly thirty years before. And when it was over, she got up and kissed him on the forehead. "God bless you, my dear!" she said. "God bless you!" and went away. CHAPTER XXXIX. "IT IS DONE WITH." After the departure of Haworth and Murdoch, Mr. Ffrench waited for some time for his daughter's appearance. He picked up a pamphlet and turned over its leaves uneasily, trying to read here and there, and making no great success of the effort. He was in a disturbed and nervous mood, the evening had been a trial to him, more especially the latter part of it during which Haworth sat on the other side of the table in his usual awkwardly free and easy posture, his hands in his pockets, his feet thrust out before him. His silence and the expression he wore had not been of a kind to relieve his companion of any tithe of the burden which had gradually accumulated upon his not too muscular shoulders. At the outset Ffrench had been simply bewildered, then somewhat anxious and annoyed, but to-day he had been stunned. Haworth's departure was an immense relief to him. It was often a relief to him in these days. Then he heard Murdoch descend the stairs and leave the house, and he waited with mingled dread and anxiousness for Rachel's coming. But she did not make her appearance. He heard her walk across the room after Murdoch left her, and then she did not seem to move again. After the lapse of half an hour he laid his pamphlet aside and rose himself. He coughed two or three times and paced the floor a little--gradually he edged toward the folding doors leading into the front room and passed through them.