Hildred came close to me, and, half-frightened, laid her hand on my arm. We both stood looking wonderingly at Granny, from whose eyes the unaccustomed light was already fading away. The voice and look had given me an odd sort of thrill, and Hildred whispered, 'Willie, do you think she saw anything?' 'No--no--I don't think so. Granny.' I spoke to her, and Hildred bent down and touched her, but she had sunk back again into the half slumber from which she had roused herself for those few minutes. 'Don't let us disturb her now,' Hildred said. 'We must do as she told us--wait. We will ask her again to-morrow.' But when to-morrow came, our question remained unasked and unremembered. We only thought how her own long waiting was over, her hopeful patience changed into perfect joy. For Granny had gone from us. In the morning we found her lying with the winter light streaming across her face. We thought she was asleep. So she was. She had fallen into the quiet sleep of death. One could scarcely call this a sudden sorrow, or a bitter sorrow. We had long known that it must come, and to her it was very welcome. Only we missed her. The chimney-corner looked empty, and we went in and out without the kindly, cheerful word that for so many years had been used to greet us. Granny had been very good to us. Neither Hildred nor I could forget the words that she had spoken about Cuthbert on the last evening of her life. We looked upon them as a kind of prophecy. Without saying anything to one another, I believe we both began at that time to have a vague feeling that he was near to us--that he was coming home. I know I never heard the bell ring at the Castle gate, without a quick thought that it might perhaps be him. I have seen Hildred stand by the half-hour together gazing at the bit of road by the bridge, where people coming from the village up to the Castle could first be seen. She got into a way of looking over her shoulder, and from side to side as she walked, as if she half expected that some one would appear from behind an angle of the broken walls, or from under the shadow of a tower. For the first time in her life she did not like to cross the ruins alone after nightfall. 'The girl seems as though she was living in a maze,' Martha Clifford said one day. 'I don't know what she would be at.' And she went behind Hildred unawares, and put her hand on her shoulder. Hildred gave a great start and turned round with the colour rushing into her cheeks. 'Why, child, what ails you?' her sister-in-law asked, not unkindly, 'that you stand there staring at nothing, and shake like a leaf if one does but touch you?' 'I don't know,' said Hildred, looking down again at the bridge, across which two people were moving slowly, and sighing as she saw them turn away along the river side. The sun was setting in a frosty sky over the trees, and its red light shone through the bare branches and was reflected in the stream. It was Christmas Eve.