A great summer passed into a melancholy misty autumn, but on a rare fine day, the sun warming the first sighing breath of winter, Stephen Lawrie sat with a book in his lap under the Siberian crabtree on the lawn. His grandfather was digging in the vegetable garden near by, when, looking up, Stephen saw him pitch forward and fall flat on his face. It was as though he had been blown down. The boy sat staring, stunned by the heaviness of the fall. Then he was seized by the terror of it and rushed screaming away. It was a stroke, and Crabtrees became a house of the sick. Stephen was packed off home. * * * Before the winter was out Francis seemed to be quite well again, and he was out and about and busy preparing for the spring. February was hardly gone when he was laid low again, this time never to rise. He was partially paralysed and could not speak. For a long time his wits were gone. . . . Slowly he crept back again into the existence of the house. His spirit would not yield up his body to the earth. Gertrude was his nurse, and very gentle with him. She was creeping about his room, thinking him asleep, with her shadow swinging to and fro as she moved. In a sudden, strangled voice, she heard him say: "I can speak." She turned to him, but he lay very still, and his face looked pinched and whiter than it had done. She was alarmed and sat up with him all night. In the early morning he asked to see his wife. Gertrude fetched her, and she came huddled and bunched up in shawl and flannels and sat by his bedside. He moved his hand a little and she reached out and took it in hers. He said: "It has been a long time, but it has been a good time. It has not all been good for you. I would be glad if you--if you could forgive me . . ." "Oh! my dear, my dear. . . . The best . . ." "I have always been afraid," he went on, and his voice gained in strength. "I have always been afraid of saying too much, and I have said too little. . . . It has been best when we were old. You have much to forgive." Mrs. Folyat could only weep. Francis asked to be given his Bible and the amethyst cross he had worn on Sundays on his watchchain. They were laid by his side and he took the cross in his hand. He said that everything he left was to go to Mary, but she was to help the others when they needed help. . . . Then he told his wife she must go away and rest, for he desired to communicate for the last time and must have a space in which to prepare himself. Gertrude aided Mrs. Folyat out of the room. It was All Fool's Day. At nine o'clock Mary was having breakfast alone when Serge walked in. She told him, and he went up at once to his father's room. He stood by the bed for a long time before Francis opened his eyes and saw him. His eyes smiled and he said: "My son." "Father."