I stepped ahead of Margaret into the fine old room, with its pleasant memorials of ancientry. There they were, just as I had seen them--scutcheon, portrait, glove, and pounce-box. There was no change in them; they were the abiding elements on which a strong soul had kept itself strong. But change there was. At the _prie-Dieu_, kneeling in a rapture before the Virgin Mother, was a solemn, black-robed priest. A narrow white bed was in the room. Two large candles burned steadily at its head, two at the foot; and on the bed, the linen turned down to reveal the thin, frail hands crossed below the Prince's brooch, lay the still, white form of our lady of the square. God had taken her to Himself. Death had caught her with a welcoming smile on her face, and, in pity and ruth, had left it there. The Hardys of Hardiwick had given their last gift to the cause. Tears were streaming down Margaret's cheeks. With shaking hands she removed her hat and, kneeling down at the bedside, clasped her hands in prayer. "She talked no end about you, sir," whispered the serving-woman, "and about the beautiful lady with you. That standing in the cold square to see the Prince was the death of her. She would have her bed put down here, sir. She wanted to die here, with the old shield in her eyes, for she was proud of her blood, as well she might be." "Yes," I whispered back. "She was the last of a great race." "Aye, sir. She was that. She was a bit moithered in her mind, dear heart, just afore she went. The last words she said were a prayer for his soul,--her sweetheart you know, sir, that she lost sixty years ago,--just as I'd heard her pray thousands of times. But, poor thing, she got his name wrong. She called him 'John.'" Choking, I threw myself on my knees beside Margaret, and prayed and fought, and fought and prayed again. Here, before me, I saw Death in the only shape in which it can give no sorrow--sinless age that had gently glided into immortality; and, with equal vision, I saw the black passage ... and the still twisted thing lying there in a patch of gloom ... my friend, gone in the pride of his youth ... his life spilt out in anger and agony ... and by me. Then the innocent hand of her for whom, though all unwittingly, I had done this thing, crept on to my shoulder, and I turned to look at her. "Thank God we came, Oliver!" she whispered. Before we could rise, the black-robed priest lifted his tall, gaunt frame slowly from the _prie-Dieu_. Standing on the opposite side of the bed he raised his hands in blessing. "Our sister is with God," he said, his deep voice vibrant with emotion. "My children, you are, as I think, those who were much in her prayers at the last. I know not who you are, but, in her memory and in God's name, I give you in this life His Peace, and in the life to come the assurance of His Everlasting Blessedness. Amen."