," she said, hesitant. "And so
is Aunt Janet--poor Aunt Janet. She's so anxious about you, and she's so
tired, you know."

He shook that thought off impatiently.

"I'll be master in my own house," he cried, with some little return to
the old Andrew. "I know it will make me worse! I know I'm dying! There,
I ought not to frighten you, Marcella! I've frightened you enough in my
life. But surely when I've lived for myself I can die for others."

And she knew that it was no use talking to him. Indeed, she would not
have dared to cross his will. In the night he prayed about it.

"Lord, I must tell these others how I set beasts in Thy way when Thou
wouldn't have made my life Thy path. I must tell them how I never knew
liberty till Thou hadst made me Thy slave, how I never knew lightness
till I carried Thy cross, how I was hungering and thirsting until I was
fed with Thy Body and Blood--"

He broke off and talked to Marcella, words that seemed eerie and
terrible to her.

"To-morrow, Marcella, is the day when the ruin came on Lashnagar.
To-morrow I shall die--"

"Oh, father!" she cried helplessly.

"I was once His enemy, Marcella. I must let them see me at His feet now,
kissing His hand--His man--the King's man--"

He brooded for an hour, gasping for breath. Marcella felt worn out
mentally and physically. Her eyes ached for want of sleep, she felt the
oppression and burden of the atmosphere that seemed full of ghosts and
fears, and to add to her misery she was having her first taste of pain
in a crazing attack of neuralgia. Anniversaries, to a mind stored with
legend and superstition, have immense signification. She felt that her
father's prediction of his death on All Souls' Day was quite reasonable.
But none the less fear was penetrating through her mists of weariness
and fatalism, hand in hand with overwhelming pity.

"I shall die to-morrow, Marcella. He gave His body and blood. In the end
that is all one can do."

In the afternoon she went to bed, worn out. Jean had made some sort of
burning plaster with brown paper and something that smelt pleasantly
aromatic. It eased the pain of her face and sent her to sleep. Her
father had told her calmly that he was going to be dressed and meet the
villagers downstairs. He seemed almost himself as he ordered her to take
his old worn clothes from the press and lay them on a chair by his bed.
She did not expostulate; no one thought of expostulating with Andrew
Lashcairn.