Lucy insisted on undressing her and putting her to bed, and perjuring herself with fibs of the deepest dye to set her mind at rest. 'I never thought he would go before me,' the dear old soul murmured, when Lucy was undressing her. 'I always thought I should go first; and it has been such a comfort to me to think that Mary could fill my place so well. And now to think that he should be called away first!' 'Who said he would go first?' Lucy said in her reassuring manner. 'He is not at all likely to go before you, you poor dear! If you had been yourself, he would not have fallen. You had no strength left, so he slipped through your poor arms. You hadn't the strength of a baby. Anyone can see how you have been failing lately, and you think it is the Master.' 'And you think it was my fault he fell--that the weakness was not in him?' the poor trembling old creature asked eagerly. She was so anxious to believe Lucy, and the faint colour flushed up under her white skin. 'Of course it was. The doctor will not tell you it was, because he doesn't want to frighten you. Anyone can see that you are much weaker than the Master.' There really seemed some truth in what Lucy said. The Master's wife was trembling all over like a leaf--she couldn't have got into bed without Lucy's help; but she was trembling with joy. 'God bless you, my dear!' she said, when the girl went away. 'You have made me so happy!' Lucy went back to Newnham with a heavy heart. It seemed as if everything were slipping away from her. It is so hard for the young to realize the great change. She felt dimly that it was not far off--that this was, indeed, the beginning of the end. Anyone could have seen that. But it was not the personal sorrow of it that moved her; there was a deeper pathos than death in the fidelity of the dear woman who clung to the old Master with a love stronger than death itself. She could not but think of the look of relief on the old tired face as she walked back to Newnham. The girls remarked that Lucy looked pale at Hall--that is, those who took any interest in her. Pamela Gwatkin never looked her way. She sat at the 'High,' among the Dons; she never condescended to look down the hall to the table where the freshers sat. Capability Stubbs came into her room after Hall, as she sat trying to work, and brought her in a cup of tea. The tea was very grateful to Lucy's overwrought nerves: it was the only thing that was nice about Miss Stubbs. Pamela Gwatkin had given her a cup of tea once or twice, but it tasted of tooth-powder. She had packed the tea and the tooth-powder in a biscuit-tin when she came up, and the lid had got off the tooth-powder box, and it had got mixed up with the tea. It would not have been political economy to have thrown it away.