fter the wood fire on the hearth had turned to cold,
gray ashes, he knelt upon the floor and battled with his grief, and
when the morning broke it found him still in the cheerless room where
he had passed the entire night and from which he went forth
strengthened, as he hoped, to do what he believed to be his duty. This
was on Saturday, and on the Sunday following there was no service at
St. Mark's. The rector was sick, the sexton said; "hard sick, too, he
had heard," and the Hetherton carriage, with Lucy in it, drove swiftly
to the rectory, where the quiet and solitude awed and frightened Lucy
as she entered the house and asked the housekeeper how Mr. Leighton
was.

"It is very sudden," she said. "He was perfectly well when he left me
on Friday night. Please tell him I am here."

The housekeeper shook her head. Her master's orders were that no one
but the doctor should be admitted, she said, repeating what Arthur had
told her in anticipation of just such an infliction as this.

But Lucy was not to be denied. Arthur was hers, his sickness was
hers, his suffering was hers, and see him she would.

"He surely did not mean me when he asked that no one should be
admitted. Tell him it is I; it is Lucy," she said with an air of
authority, which, in one so small, so pretty and so child-like, only
amused Mrs. Brown, who departed with the message, while Lucy sat down
with her feet upon the stove and looked around the sitting-room,
thinking that it was smaller and poorer than the one at Prospect Hill,
and how she would remodel it when she was mistress there.

"He says you can come," was the word Mrs. Brown brought back, and,
with a gleam of triumph in her eye and a toss of the head, which said,
"I told you so," Lucy went softly into the darkened room and shut the
door behind her.

Arthur had half expected this and had nerved himself to meet it, but
the cold sweat stood on his face and his heart throbbed painfully as
Lucy bent over him and Lucy's tears fell on his face while she took
his feverish hands in hers and murmured softly, "Poor, dear Arthur, I
am so sorry for you, and if I could I'd bear the pain so willingly."

He knew she would; she was just as loving and unselfish as that, and
he wound his arms around her and drew her down close to him while he
whispered, "My poor, little Lucy; I don't deserve this from you."

She did not know what he meant, and she only answered him with
kisses, while her little hands moved ca