"Ask God to have pity on me," said Cuckoo faintly. "Isn't there some one coming in now?" "No one." "Ask God to have pity on us both," said Cuckoo again. "Pray so that I can hear." But apparently Monkey Brand could not pray aloud. "Say something to make the time pass," she whispered. "The Lord is my Shepherd," said Monkey Brand brokenly, his mind throwing back thirty years; "I shall not want. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He----" "I seem to hear steps," interrupted Cuckoo. "He leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea, though I walk"--the voice broke down--"though I walk in the valley of the shadow of----" "Some one is coming in now," said Cuckoo, in a faint, acute voice. "It is Janet." "I can't see her plainly. Tell her to come nearer." He beckoned to Janet. "I can see her now," said Cuckoo, the blindness of death in her wide eyes, which stared vacantly where Janet was not; "at least, I see some one. Isn't she holding her hand to her forehead?" "Yes." The last tears Cuckoo was destined to shed stood in her blind eyes. "Good-bye, dear Janet," she gasped. "Good-bye, Cuckoo." "Send her away. Is she quite gone, Arthur?" "Yes, dearest." "I must go too. I don't know how to leave you, but I must. I cannot see you, but you are with me in the darkness. Take me in your arms and let me die in them. Is that your cheek against mine? How cold it is! Hold your dear hands to my face that I may kiss them too. They have been kind, kind hands to me. How my poor Arthur trembles! You were too good for me, Arthur. You have been the only real friend I've ever had in the world. More than father and mother to me. More than any one." "You did love me, little one?" "Yes." "Only me?" "Only you." He burst into a passion of tears. "Forgive me for having doubted you," he said hoarsely. "Did you ever doubt me?" "Yes, once. I ought to have known better. I can't forgive myself. Forgive me, my wife." Cuckoo was silent. Death was hard upon her, heavy on voice and breath. "Say, 'Arthur, I forgive you,'" whispered her husband through the darkness. "Arthur, I forgive you," said Cuckoo with a sob. And her head fell forward on his breast. CHAPTER VIII "But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend." It was not until Janet was sitting alone in the room she had taken at an hotel that her dazed mind began to recover itself. It did not recoil in horror from the remembrance of that grim ascent to the flat. It did not dwell on Cuckoo's death. Janet said over and over again to herself, in tearless anguish, "Cuckoo and Fred! Cuckoo and Fred!" The shock had succeeded to a great strain, and she succumbed to it.