cover a large measure
of his accustomed vigour. He was extraordinarily alert and cheerful--so
_alive_ that Sara began to hope Dr. McPherson had been mistaken in his
opinion, and that there might yet remain many more good years of the
happy comradeship that existed between herself and her guardian.

Such buoyancy appeared incompatible with the imminence of death, and one
day, driven by the very human instinct to hear her optimism endorsed,
she scoffed a little, tentatively, at the doctor's verdict.

Patrick shook his head.

"No, my dear, he's right," he said decisively. "But I'm not going to
whine about it. Taken all round, I've found life a very good sort of
thing--although"--reflectively--"I've missed the best it has to offer a
man. And probably I'll find death a very good sort of thing, too, when
it comes."

And so Patrick Lovell went forward, his spirit erect, to meet death
with the same cheerful, half-humorous courage he had opposed to the
emergencies of life.

It was a few days after this, on Christmas Eve, that Sara, coming into
his special den with a gay little joke on her lips and a great bunch of
mistletoe in her arms, was arrested by the sudden, chill quiet of the
little room.

The familiar wheeled chair was drawn up to the window, and she could see
the back of Patrick's head with its thick crop of grizzled hair, but he
did not turn or speak at the sound of her entrance.

"Uncle, didn't you hear me? Are you asleep? . . . _Uncle!_" Her voice
shrilled on to a sharp staccato note, then cracked and broke suddenly.

There came no movement from the chair. The silence remained unbroken
save for the ticking of a clock and the loud beating of her own heart.
The two seemed to merge into one gigantic pulse . . . deafening . . .
overwhelming . . . like the surge of some immense, implacable sea.

She swayed a little, clutching at the door for support. Then the
throbbing ceased, and she was only conscious of a solitude so intense
that it seemed to press about her like a tangible thing.

Swiftly, on feet of terror, she crossed the room and stood looking down
at the motionless figure of her uncle. His face was turned towards the
sun, and wore an expression of complete happiness and content, as though
he had just found something for which he had been searching. He had
looked like that a thousand times, when, seeking for her, he had come
upon her, at last, hidden in some shady nook in the garden or swinging
in her h