y certain you
have long been a nuisance to other people."

He had for some months grown physically weaker, and both Raymond and
others had noticed an inconsequence of utterance and an inability to
concentrate the mind. He liked friends to come and see him and would
listen with obvious effort to follow any argument, or grasp any fresh
item of news. But he spoke less and less. Nor could Sabina tempt him to
eat adequate food. He ignored the doctor's drugs and seemed to shrink
physically as well as mentally.

"I'm turning into my chrysalis," he said once to Estelle. "One has to go
through that phase before one can be a butterfly. Remember, my pretty
girl, you are only burying an empty chrysalis when this broken thing is
put into the ground."

"You're very unkind to talk so," she declared. "You might go on living
if you liked, and you ought to try--for the sake of those who love you."

But he shook his head.

"One doesn't control these things. You know I've always told you that
the length of the thread is no part of our business, but only the
spinning. I should have liked to see you married; yet, after all, why
not? I may be there. I shall hope to beg a holiday on that occasion and
be in church."

He always spoke thus quite seriously. Death he regarded as no
discontinuity, or destruction, of life, but merely an alteration of
environment.

At some personal cost Miss Ironsyde came to take leave of him, when it
seemed that his end was near. He kept his bed now, and by conserving his
strength gained a little activity of mind.

He was troubled for Jenny's physical sufferings; while she, for her
part, endeavoured to discuss Sabina's problems, but she could not
interest the old man in them.

"Abel is safe with his father," said Mr. Churchouse. "As for Sabina, I
have left her a competency, and so have you. One has been very heartily
sorry for her. She will have no anxiety when my will is read. I am
leaving you three books, Jenny. I will leave you more if you like. My
library as a whole is bequeathed to Estelle Waldron, since I know nobody
who values and respects books so well."

"But Abel," she said.

"I have tried to establish his character and we may find, after all, I
did more than we think. Providence is ever ready to water and tend the
good seed that we sow. But he must be made to abandon this fatal
attitude to his father. It is uncomfortable and inconvenient and helps
nobody. I shall talk to him, I hope, before