The door of the blacksmith's house was open when Sally reached it, and, entering softly, she removed her wet cloak and stood in the dimly lighted parlour wondering how she should make her presence known. From overhead came the sound of voices talking in suppressed whispers, and once Sally shivered, for a long-drawn moan fell upon her ear. "I'll go and see the old mother. Perhaps I can stay with her, and set Mrs. Allison free when I have just said good-bye to her husband," thought Sally, as she went up the stairs. A near neighbour met her at the top. "We're just at our wits' end, miss," she said in answer to Sally's inquiry. "The old lady's not to be told anything about it, and Mrs. Allison, poor soul! falls out of one faint into another, and can't stay in the room along with him who's dying." "May I go to him for a minute. He wanted to see me," said Sally, with a sob. But, ushered into the chamber of death, Sally stood for a moment overpowered by an awful terror: a chill which seemed as if it would stop the beating of her heart, a terror she could not have explained. Face to face with death! The words were familiar enough, but they had conveyed little meaning to her. This man, who lay there, unable from time to time to keep back a groan of agony, with the grey shadow deepening on his face, and the drops of perspiration standing on his forehead, would soon lie there silent and still, capable of neither speech, nor feeling, nor hearing. He would be simply an empty shell. It was awful!--inexpressibly awful. It all flashed through Sally's mind in one shuddering instant; the next, she had pulled herself together and crossed to the bedside on tip-toe, and stood looking down at the poor, prostrate form with ineffable pity in her dark eyes. "Oh, Lord! I can't bear it!" broke in a sort of wail from the blue lips. "It can't last long; an hour or so will settle it." The words Sally recognized as an exclamation rather than a prayer, but they brought the rector to her remembrance. If any man could help another in his last agony surely it would be he. "Mr. Allison," she said, laying her soft hand on the grimy one that moved up and down so restlessly upon the counterpane, "I heard you wanted to see me. Let me do something. Is there no one else you would like to see? Shall I fetch Mr. Curzon?" Allison's eyes unclosed, dimmed already by the gathering haze of death. "Bless you, missy; this ain't no place for you, though it's good of you to come. Good-bye. God bless you! You get home again; it will hurt you to see me suffer." Once more that half-blind appeal to the Higher Power of which Mr. Curzon had spoken, and he spoke with no uncertain sound. He seemed to know about it. "Won't the rector come?" asked Sally again. But Allison shook his head. "No, no; we'd words to-day. I can't mind what about; but it don't matter much. I told 'un not to come."