“You wonder why I speak these things to-day? It is your own fault, Henry, my friend! Why do I keep my hearth fire bright except that you should drop in beside it and talk to me? It is quite the only thing left that is entertaining. And to-day you yourself threaten that!” Her voice fell low, “Christmas has always been my day, why this time do you bring with you these terrible thoughts, this talk of--death! Why talk of it, the thinking of it is bad enough! Did anyone ever hear me talk of dying? Except, of course, my lawyer. No, when death takes me, he must catch me first! I shall never go forth to meet him with plans and preparations for the things that shall come after,--and why should you? Why must you talk of your going, speaking as if I could have an interest in your work without you! Oh, Henry, why did you yourself bring the spectre to our Christmas fire, where I wanted to be snug and warm! You are not afraid, but I--I regret to confess it, I am!” Then her tone grew less intense, determinedly casual, “Yet it is curious that I should care or really take the trouble to be afraid! I who am bored to the uttermost! The other will be at least a new thing! But I have never been fond of games of chance! A picture in a frame is dead enough, but a coffin is--ugh!--slightly worse! It is so ugly, this dying! Nobody can ever say I yielded to it before I had to--I have yielded so far, I flatter myself, to nothing! Yet when I must, I shall step into my carriage and drive off with my head up and my lips shut, like a lady! As I have lived!” She paused, momentarily conscious of his expression, so that to the strange intentness of his watching face she went on, “I never have yielded to the need of a confessional before; if I do so once in a lifetime, you really must excuse me, Henry! “Of course, for you it is different, you are not afraid; you are a man, and then you have your religion. But a woman is rarely religious, at least a woman who has not had what she wanted! As a thinking person, I quite envy you your religion. It is a valuable possession, at this end of life. Not that I am unorthodox--who is, in our good old churchly Westbury? I am a good churchwoman,--that does not enable me to see through a stone wall. Oh, Henry, Henry, here you come to-day, looking so pale that I can’t bear it, and talking of going, passing on, leaving your work! You have made me feel how near we are, you and I, to that stone wall. I am sitting here shivering at the strange things on the other side!” No light but the ebbing fire and the clear green lamp, and somewhere outside in the darkness stars above the swift rush of the river.