Then the dream changed; his arms fell to his sides, and he stared out into the room, seeming to shrink a little into himself. He was striving to remember now what had been said to him that day; striving almost to believe that it was not true. Above all, he was alone; and even now there might be a Presence in the house. He was not afraid; but if he might only know when It was coming. Not yet--oh, God!--not yet! And then the prayer--the only cowardly cry that had come from him--"Lord, let it be sudden; kill me in my sleep!"--and then a seizing of the paper, and a wild beginning to write. "To Moira, beloved of my heart now and always, I give----" * * * * * At the last, with some growing faintness upon him, and with the pen trailing off illegibly, he must have tried to get to the children. For they found him at the foot of the stairs, lying there with his hands stretched up towards the room, and with a smile upon his face, as though at the last he had striven to call to them. Patience found him like that, early in the morning, before anyone was stirring; and the old woman sat for a long time on the stairs, holding him in her arms, as she had done many and many a time when he had been a child, and whispering to him, and striving to wake him. But he was quite dead. There is a courage born of love and devotion greater than ever sprang from passion or from hate; and such a courage was given to the woman then. When she knew that her dead was past recall, she determined that no other hand should touch him--no other eyes look upon him, until presently he should lie calm and peaceful as she would have him lie. With a love-given strength that seemed impossible for her withered limbs, she got her arms about him, and got him toilsomely up the stairs; being so gentle with him, and whispering so tenderly, that he might have been a thing alive, and only sick and faint. And so got him to his room, and laid him on his bed; and only then, for the first time, gave way. For when that was done, and the door closed upon her and her dead, she wept her withered heart out; with only his cold hand against her cheek and her tears upon it. Afterwards, while she gathered her wits, she kept up the amazing pretence that he had not yet come home. Everyone had gone to bed on the previous night before Old Paul had let himself into the house; and the woman told herself that she must seek some advice, before the children or Anthony Ditchburn knew what had happened. She did not quite know to whom to go; for the present she turned the key in the lock, and left him there, and set about her ordinary duties. For those must be done always, she thought, whether men lived or died.