ry and her father looked at her as though surprised.
Suddenly he leaned over and stroked her hair. She cried all the more; it
was the first tender thing she could remember his doing to her, the
first caress he had ever given her.

"I wish I'd been good to ye, Marcella--I think often, now, of that poor
wee broken arm, and how ye used to cower away from me! I wish I'd got a
grip on myself sooner."

"Oh, if you make me love you any more, father, I'll be torn in bits,"
she cried, and sobbed, and could not be comforted. It was her only break
from inarticulateness--it surprised herself and her father almost as
though she had said something indecent.

When he knew, quite definitely, that he was dying and need not conserve
his strength, some of the old tyranny came back to Andrew Lashcairn. But
it was a kindly, rather splendid tyranny, the sort of tyranny that
makes religious zealots send unbelievers to the stake, killing the body
for the soul's sake. Much of the evangelism the little white-faced cousin
had superimposed upon his mind that night of wild passions had gone now,
burnt up as he drew nearer to simple, beautiful, essential things.

As the Feast of All Souls, the time when ghosts thronged on Lashnagar,
drew near he brooded in silence for hours. Through one of his choking
attacks he lay passive, scarcely fighting for breath; only once did he
turn supplicating eyes on Aunt Janet, mutely demanding the drug that
soothed. And when he was able to speak again, he told them what he had
been thinking.

"I want to tell people," he said, speaking very rapidly. "The mantle of
prophecy has fallen upon me."

"Ye've tauld us, Andrew--and that's enough," said Aunt Janet, who had no
patience with his frequent swift rushes towards a climax.

"I'm going to tell the others. I'm going to testify to the power of His
might," he said just as grimly, gripping his stiff, cold hands together.

"Yell be getting upset, Andrew, an' then we'll be having a time with
ye," said Aunt Janet.

"I'll not be getting upset. I'll just be dying," he said gravely, and,
calling Marcella, sent her to the village, summoning all the people to
come up to the farm on All Souls' Night at seven o'clock.

"I must tell them, Marcella," he said passionately, pleading for her
understanding which she could not give, for she could not understand in
the least. "I have never done anything for anyone. I must do something."

"I'm afraid you'll be worse for it, father