‘You sent me out, Mary, to search for something, the thought of which has been tormenting and torturing you. You thought God would let a dark lost spirit trouble you and take you away from Him--you, His child, whom He made and whom He loves! And listen! While you thought you were sending me out to face the evil thing, you were really my kind angel--God’s messenger--sending me to meet the joy of my whole life! ‘There was some one waiting here just now,’ she went on hurriedly, breathing her sobbing words into Mary’s ear. ‘Some one who has loved me, and whom I love. But I had made him sad, and myself; then when you sent me out he came too, we walked up that path, you remember beyond the larchwood, up to the top, where the stream goes under the road. And there he spoke to me, and I couldn’t help it any more. And I promised to love him and be his wife. And if it hadn’t been for you, Mary, it would never have happened. God had put it into your hand, this joy, and I bless you for it! Oh, and Mary--Mary--it is only for a little little while this life of ours! Nothing matters--not our worst sin and sorrow--but God, and our love to Him. I shall meet you some day--I pray I may--in His sight and all will be well, the pain all forgotten--all!’ She raised herself again and looked down with yearning passionate pity on the shadowed form. Oh, blessed answer of heart to heart! There were tears forming under the heavy lids, the corners of the lips were relaxed and soft. Slowly the feeble hand sought her own. She waited in an intense, expectant silence. There was a faint breathing from the lips, she stooped, and caught it. ‘Kiss me!’ said the whisper, and she laid her soft fresh lips to the parched mouth of the dying. When she lifted her head again Mary still held her hand; Catherine softly stretched out hers for the opiate Dr. Baker had left; it was swallowed without resistance, and a quiet to which the invalid had been a stranger for days stole little by little over the wasted frame. The grasp of the fingers relaxed, the labored breath came more gently, and in a few more minutes she slept. Twilight was long over. The ghost-hour was passed, and the moon outside was slowly gaining a wider empire in the clearing heavens. It was a little after ten o’clock that Rose drew aside the curtain at Burwood and looked out. ‘There is the lantern,’ she said to Agnes, ‘just by the vicarage. How the night has cleared!’ She turned back to her book. Agnes was writing letters. Mrs. Leyburn was sitting by the bit of fire that was generally lit for her benefit in the evenings, her white shawl dropping gracefully about her, a copy of the _Cornhill_ on her lap. But she was not reading, she was meditating, and the girls thought her out of spirits. The hall door opened. ‘There is some one with Catherine!’ cried Rose starting up. Agnes suspended her letter. ‘Perhaps the vicar,’ said Mrs. Leyburn, with a little sigh.