ld not laugh now, and her smile was sadder than tears; so she
bent down her head and laid it against his knee where he could not see
her face. By and by he touched her, and she lifted up her tear-dimmed
eyes to his fingers.

"Promise me," he said, "not to sell this old place. It has belonged to
the Marlowes from generation to generation. Who can tell but the dead
come back to the place where they've lived so long? If you can, keep it
for my sake."

"I promise it," she answered. "I will never sell it."

"Perhaps I shall lose my power to speak to you," he went on, "but don't
you fret as if I did not forgive him as robbed me. He learnt to talk on
his fingers for my sake, and I'll say 'God bless him' for your sake. If
we meet one another in the next world I'll forgive him freely, and if
need be I'll ask pardon for him. Phebe, I do forgive him."

As he spoke there was a brighter light in his sunken eyes, and a smile
on his face such as she had not seen since the day he had helped Roland
Sefton to escape. She took both of his hands into hers and kissed them
fondly. But by and by, though it was yet clear day, he crept feebly
up-stairs to his dark little loft under the thatched roof, and lay down
on the bed where his father and grandfather had died before him.

At first he was able to talk a little in short, brief sentences; but
very soon that which he had dreaded came upon him. His fingers grew too
stiff to form the signs, and his eyes too dim to discern even the
slowest movement of her dear hands. There was now no communication
between them but that of touch, and he could not bear to miss the gentle
clasp of Phebe's hand. When she moved away from him he tossed wearily
from side to side, groping restlessly with his thin fingers. In utter
silence and darkness, but hand to hand with her, he at last passed away.

The next few days was a strange and bewildering time to Phebe.
Neighbors were coming and going, and taking the arrangements for the
funeral into their own hands, with little reference to her. The
clergyman of the parish, who lived three miles off, rode over the hills
to hold a solemn interview with her. Mrs. Nixey would not leave her
alone, and if she could have had her way would have carried her off to
her own house. But this Phebe would not submit to; except the two nights
she had been away when she went to the sea-side to break the news of
Roland's death to Felicita and her mother, she had never been absent for