He turned away at her word, and with long, rapid strides took the path which Miss Edith had taken earlier. The mother paused to look at him from the threshold. Hannah knitted on with a feverish haste and a frightened countenance. For a third time the bell called, now more imperatively, and Sarah mounted the crooked stairway followed by the frightened gaze of her sister. In the cool and shaded chamber into which Sarah went, a chamber fitted with high-shouldered old mahogany furniture, the youngest piece of which had known the grandfathers of the withered old man who lay in the carved bed, the air seemed to her electric with dreadful possibilities. Mr. Grayman was sitting up in bed, his scant white locks elfishly disheveled about the pale parchment of his face, his eyes unnaturally bright. "Where have you been?" he demanded, with fierce querulousness. "Why did n't you come when I rang?" She did not at first reply, but busied herself with the medicine which it was time for him to take. "Whose voice did I hear?" the old man demanded, as soon as he had swallowed the teaspoonful of liquid she brought him. "Hannah is here," she answered briefly. "But I heard a man's voice," he continued, his excitement steadily mounting. "I know who it was! I know who it was!" "Lie down," his nurse said sternly. "You know the doctor said your heart would n't stand excitement." "It was George!" he exclaimed shrilly. "He's an impudent--" A fit of gasping choked him, but he struggled fiercely to go on. "If she speaks to him, if she looks at him even, I'll curse her! I'll curse her! I'll come back from my grave to--" A convulsive gasping ended the sentence. He tore at his throat, at his breast, he struggled dreadfully. Old Sarah supported him in her arms, and tried to aid him, but nothing could save him from the effect of that paroxysm. With one tremendous final effort, the old man threw back his head, drew in his breath with a frightful gasp, then forced it out again in the attempt to utter a last malediction. "Curse--" The shrill word rang through the chamber, but it was followed by no other. A strong, wrinkled hand, a hand that for a lifetime had worked faithfully for him and his, was pressed over his mouth. He choked, gasped, and then the male line of the Grayman family was extinct. In the meantime Hannah had been sitting on the porch, knitting like an automaton, and staring at the yellow cat with eyes full of dazed terror. She heard the disturbance in the chamber above, but it came to her very faintly until that last shrill word rang down the ancient stairway. Then she dropped her knitting in complete consternation. "Oh, goodness!" she said aloud. "Oh, goodness gracious me!"