Pausing here, the Mistress closed her lips with a certain emphatic movement, as though she had nothing more to say upon this subject, and was about proceeding to some other, when they were both startled by the noisy opening of a door, which Katie knew to be the study. The sound was that of some feeble hand, vainly attempting to turn the handle, and shaking the whole door with the effort which was at last successful; then came a strange, incoherent, half-pronounced “Katie!” Katie flew to the door, with a face like death itself. The Mistress rose and waited, breathless, yet too conscious of her own impatience of intrusion to follow. Then a heavy, slow fall, as of some one whose limbs failed under him, a cry from Katie, and the sudden terrified scream of one of the maids from the kitchen moved the Mistress beyond all thoughts but those of help. She ran into the little hall of the manse, throwing her cloak off her shoulders with an involuntary promise that she could not leave this house to-day. There she saw a melancholy sight, the minister, with a gray ashen paleness upon his face, lying on the threshold of his study, not insensible, but powerless, moving with a dreadful impotence those poor, pale, trembling lips, from which no sound would come. Katie knelt beside him, supporting his head, almost as pallid as he, aggravating, unawares, the conscious agony of his helplessness by anxious, tender questions, imploring him to speak to her--while the maid stood behind, wringing her hands, crying, and asking whether she should bring water? whether she should get some wine? what she should do? “Flee this moment,” cried the Mistress, pushing this latter to the door, “and bring in the first man you can meet to carry him to his bed--that’s what _you’re_ to do--and, Katie, Katie, whisht, dinna vex him--he canna speak to you. Keep up your heart--we’ll get him to his bed, and we’ll get the doctor, and he’ll come round.” Katie lifted up her woeful white face to the Mistress--the poor girl did not say a word--did not even utter a sob or shed a tear. Her eyes said only, “it has come! it has come!” The blow which she had been trembling for had fallen at last. And the Mistress, who was not given to tokens of affection, stooped down in the deep pity of her heart and kissed Katie’s forehead. There was nothing to be said. This sudden calamity was beyond the reach of speech.