Repeatedly John had offered to stay and keep her company. "You may not sleep, dearest," he said gently. "Someone had better be with you." "I shall have Claudina," she replied with a smile of gratitude. "And I think I shall sleep. I’ve scarcely been to bed since he was ill. I think I shall sleep." And her eyes closed involuntarily. Jill offered to stay, to help her to bed, to sit by her side until she slept. But, patiently and persistently, she shook her tired, white head and smiled. "Claudina understands my little fidgety ways," she said--"and perhaps I shall be better with her." Down the vast chamber, she walked with them again to the little door. Her head was high and brave, but the heart within her beat so faintly and so still, that sometimes, unseen by them, she put her hand upon her bodice to assure herself that it beat at all. Before they pulled the heavy curtain, she stopped and took both their hands in hers. "My dear--dear children," she whispered, and for the first time her voice quivered. A sob answered it in Jill’s throat. She tried to face the old lady’s eyes, bright with a strange and almost unnatural brilliance, but a thousand reproaches cried at her courage and beat it back. "My dear--dear children," said the old lady once more, and this time her voice took a new power into itself. Her figure seemed to straighten, her eyes to steady with resolve. "I have something I want to say; something your father would have said as well, had there been time. I thought of waiting till to-morrow, perhaps till he was buried. But I’m going to say it now; before you can tell me what I know you mean to. I discussed it all with your father before you came, and he quite agreed with me." She paused. A great, deep breath she drew, as does a painter when he nerves his hand. And in the gathering darkness in that great room, they waited with all attention expectant.