"Her baby's born; something has gone wrong, I suppose, and she is dying. Sally ran up with the news, sent by Mr. Speck. Katherine is crying aloud for you, saying she cannot die without your forgiveness. Oh, Godfrey, you will go, you will surely go!" pleaded Mrs. Carradyne, breaking down with a burst of tears. "Poor Katherine!" Never another word spoke he. He went out at the hall-door there and then, putting on his hat as he leaped down the steps. It was a wretched night; not white, clear, and cold as the last New Year's Eve had been, or mild and genial as the one before it; but damp, raw, misty. "You think I have remained hard and defiant, father," Katherine whispered to him, "but I have many a time asked God's forgiveness on my bended knees; and I longed--oh, how I longed!--to ask yours. What should we all do with the weight of sin that lies on us when it comes to such an hour as this, but for Jesus Christ--for God's wonderful mercy!" And, with one hand in her father's and the other in her husband's, both their hearts aching to pain, and their eyes wet with bitter tears, poor Katherine's soul passed away. After quitting the parsonage, Captain Monk was softly closing the garden gate behind him--for when in sorrow we don't do things with a rush and a bang--when a whirring sound overhead caused him to start. Strong, hardened man though he was, his nerves were unstrung to-night in company with his heartstrings. It was the church clock preparing to strike twelve. The little doctor, Speck, who had left the house but a minute before, was standing at the churchyard fence close by, his arms leaning on the rails, probably ruminating sadly on what had just occurred. Captain Monk halted beside him in silence, while the clock struck. As the last stroke vibrated on the air, telling the knell of the old year, the dawn of the new, another sound began. Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring! The chimes! The sweet, soothing, melodious chimes, carolling forth The Bay of Biscay. Very pleasant were they in themselves to the ear. But--did they fall pleasantly on Captain Monk's? It may be, not. It may be, a wish came over him that he had never thought of instituting them. But for doing that, the ills of his recent life had never had place. George West's death would not have lain at his door, or room been made by it for Tom Dancox, and Katherine would not be lying as he had now left her--cold and lifeless. "Could _nothing_ have been done to save her, Speck?" he whispered to the doctor, whose arms were still on the churchyard railings, listening to the chimes in silence--though indeed he had asked the same question indoors before. "Nothing; or you may be sure, sir, it would have been," answered Mr. Speck. "Had all the medical men in Worcestershire been about her, they could not have saved her any more than I could. These unfortunate cases happen now and then," sighed he, "showing us how powerless we really are."