She knocked, and, waiting for another fit of coughing to pass, she knocked again. A dreary pause, and the door opened. Babette’s face peered round it. She put her finger to her lip and came out on to the landing, kissed Betty, tears in her eyes, and said: “She is dying. I got admittance two days ago.” Betty went in, and as she halted on the threshold, her heart stood still. Seated on the side of her bed, in her poor worn night-gown, was Moll Davenant, struggling for breath. Betty ran to her, knelt down beside her, and drew a blanket about the shoulders and limbs; and, as she did so, she saw that her body was wasted as with old age. She saw also, with the quick sight that is given to us in emotional moments, that the place was well kept--proofs of the care of Babette’s hands were everywhere. Moll Davenant stopped coughing, and a smile came into her eyes. She let Betty put her gently into the warm bed. “Betty, dear heart,” said she--“kneel by my bed, that I may keep my hand on your head a little while.... I am broken--broken--wounded--dying.... But God in His mercy has sent you--and my feet have ceased to bleed--there are no thorns upon the road now--no roughnesses. I cease from stumbling. And there is the light--flashing up--from afar. And the song of birds. The spring must be coming.... I have nearly gone mad for want of you----” “Sh-sh! Molly--I am here,” she said. As Eustace Lovegood stepped to Molly’s bed, the others slipped quietly from the lamp-lit room.... The big man had been seated on the side of the bed some time, with Moll’s slender fingers in his great hand, when she awoke and found him there. She leaped up and clasped her arms about him, as a frightened child runs and hides itself in its mother’s skirts. “Molly,” said he, taking her terrified face between his hands and holding her eyes to his until the pallid face of fear became a flush of shyness: “Molly, you are not frightened?” She buried her face on his neck: “I have been a mistake--a large mistake, all through,” she said. She was seized with a violent fit of coughing. The big man put her gently into the bed--the air was nipping, spite of the room’s warmth. “No, Moll, you always overstate a case.” He smiled sadly. “You even admire my verses.” She laughed in spite of herself--gladly; but fear lurked in her eyes. Her mood turned to sudden terror. She leaped up, and held him with fearful hands--the sweat stood in cold beads upon her flesh: “For God’s sake, Eustace; don’t go away again----” “No, Moll--I will never go away again.” He soothed her, racked with the torture of violent coughing, her veins standing out like cords upon the torn meagre body; and as the struggle ran down he set her gently back amongst the pillows and warm bedclothes. “Molly, you must be still--Betty sent me word that you were ill--and I have come.”