e may even be dying!'

I met with the usual treatment of a prophet of evil. 'You young muff,' I
was told on all sides, 'who asked your opinion? Who are you, to know
better than anyone else?'

Ormsby attacked me hotly for trying to excite a groundless alarm, and I
was recommended to hold my tongue and go to sleep.

I said no more, but I could not sleep; the others dropped off one by
one, Ormsby being the last; but I lay awake listening and thinking,
until the dread and suspense grew past bearing. I _must_ know the truth.
I would go down and find the Doctor, and beg him to tell me; he might be
angry and punish me--but that would be nothing in comparison with the
relief of knowing my fear was unfounded.

Stealthily I slipped out of bed, stole through the dim room to the door,
and down the old staircase, which creaked under my bare feet. The dog in
the yard howled as I passed the big window, through which the stars were
sparkling frostily in the keen blue sky. Outside the room in which
Marjory lay, I listened, but could hear nothing. At least she was
sleeping, then, and, relieved already, I went on down to the hall.

The big clock on a table there was ticking solemnly, like a slow
footfall; the lamp was alight, so the Doctor must be still up. With a
heart that beat loudly I went to his study door and lifted my hand to
knock, when from within rose a sound at which the current of my blood
stopped and ran backwards--the terrible, heartbroken grief of a grown
man.

Boy as I was, I felt that an agony like that was sacred; besides, I
knew the worst then.

I dragged myself upstairs again, cold to the bones, with a brain that
was frozen too. My one desire was to reach my bed, cover my face, and
let the tears flow; though, when I did regain it, no tears and no
thoughts came. I lay there and shivered for some time, with a stony,
stunned sensation, and then I slept--as if Marjory were well.

The next morning the bell under the cupola did not clang, and Sutcliffe
came up with the direction that we were to go down very quietly, and not
to draw up the window-blinds; and then we all knew what had happened
during the night.

There was a very genuine grief, though none knew Marjory as I had known
her; the more emotional wept, the older ones indulged in little
semi-pious conventional comments, oddly foreign to their usual tone;
all--even the most thoughtless--felt the same hush and awe overtake
them.

I could not cry; I felt not