"I want my wife!" he said imperiously. "I tell tha, I want my wife!" It was as though the last energy of being had thrown itself into the cry--indignant, passionate, protesting. Meynell rose. "I will bring her." Bateson gripped his hand. "Tell her to mind that cottage at Morden End--and the night we came home there first--as married folk. Tell her I'm goin'--goin' fast." He fell back, panting. Meynell gave him food and medicine. Then he went quickly downstairs, and knocked at the parlour door. After an interval of evident hesitation on the part of the occupant of the room, it was reluctantly unlocked. Meynell pushed it open wide. "Mrs. Bateson--come to your husband--he is dying!" The woman, deadly white, threw back her head proudly. But Meynell laid a peremptory hand on her arm. "I command you--in God's name. Come!" A struggle shook her. She yielded suddenly--and began to cry. Meynell patted her on the shoulder as he might have patted a child, said kind, soothing things, gave her her husband's message, and finally drew her from the room. She went upstairs, Meynell following, anxious about the physical result of the meeting, and ready to go for the doctor at a moment's notice. The door at the top of the stairs was open. The dying man lay on his side, gazing toward it, and gauntly illumined by the rising light. The woman went slowly forward, drawn by the eyes directed upon her. "I thowt tha'd come!" said Bateson, with a smile. She sat down upon the bed, crouching, emaciated; at first motionless and voiceless; a spectacle little less piteous, little less deathlike, than the man on the pillows. He still smiled at her, in a kind of triumph; also silent, but his lips trembled. Then, groping, she put out her hand--her disfigured, toil-worn hand--and took his, raising it to her lips. The touch of his flesh seemed to loosen in her the fountains of the great deep. She slid to her knees and kissed him--enfolding him with her arms, the two murmuring together. Meynell went out into the dawn. His mystical sense had beheld the Lord in that small upper room; had seen as it were the sacred hands breaking to those two poor creatures the sacrament of love. His own mind was for the time being tranquillized. It was as though he said to himself, "I know that trouble will come back--I know that doubts and fears will pursue me again; but this hour--this blessing--is from God!"... The sun was high in a dewy world, already busy with its first labours of field and mine, when Meynell left the cottage. The church clock was on the stroke of eight. He passed down the village street, and reached again the little gabled house which he had passed the night before. As he approached, there was a movement in the garden. A lady, who was walking among the roses, holding up her gray dress from the dew, turned and hastened toward the gate. "Please come in! You must be tired out. The gardener told me he'd seen you about. We've got some coffee ready for you."