Her thoughts went back to that evening when she and St. John had sat talking together by the firelight in the West Parlour. Yes, she had known--ever since then--that the Dark Angel was drawing near. And now, now that she realised her old friend had stepped painlessly and peacefully across the border-line which divides this world we know from that other world whose ways are hidden from our sight, it came upon her less as a shock than as the inevitable ending of a long suspense. "I wish--I wish I'd seen him just once more," she said wistfully. "To--to say good-bye." Kitty searched the depths of her bag and withdrew a sealed envelope. "I think he must have known that," she said gently. "He left this to be given to you." She gave the letter into the girl's hands and, signing to Penelope to follow her, quitted the room, leaving Nan alone with her dead. In the silence of the empty room Nan read the last words, of her beloved Uncle David that would ever reach her. "I think this is good-bye, Nan," he had written. "But don't grieve overmuch, my dear. If you knew how long a road to travel it has seemed since Annabel went away, you would be glad for me. Will you try to be? Always remember that the road was brightened by many flowers along the wayside--and one of those flowers has been our good friendship, yours and mine. We've been comrades, Nan, which is a far better thing than most relatives achieve. And if sometimes you feel sad and miss the old friendship--as I know you will--just remember that I'm only in the next room. People are apt to make a great to-do about death. But, after all, it's merely stepping from one of God's rooms into the next. "I don't want to talk much about money matters, but I must just say this--that all I have will be yours, just as all my heart was yours. "I hope life will be kind to you, my dear--kinder than you hope or expect." There were many who would find the world the poorer for lack of the kindly, gallant spirit which had passed into "God's next room," but to Nan the old man's death meant not only the loss of a beloved friend, but the withdrawal from her life of a strong, restraining influence which, unconsciously to herself, had withheld her from many a rash action into which her temperament would otherwise have hurried her. It seemed a very climax of the perversity of fate that now, at the very moment when the pain and bitterness of things were threatening to submerge her, Death's relentless fingers should snatch away the one man on earth who, with his wise insight and hoarded experience of life, might have found a way to bring peace and healing to her troubled soul. She spent the rest of the day quietly in her room, and when she reappeared at dinner she was perfectly composed, although her eyes still bore traces of recent tears. Against the black of the simple frock she wore, her face and throat showed pale and clear like some delicate piece of sculpture.