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n you are ready, you put this over your mouth, and clasp the springs behind your head.... So.... it works quite easily. Then you turn this handle, round that way, as far as it will go. And that is all." Mabel nodded. She had regained her self-command, and understood plainly enough, though even as she spoke once again her eyes strayed away to the window. "That is all," she said. "And what then?" The nurse eyed her doubtfully for a moment. "I understand perfectly," said Mabel. "And what then?" "There is nothing more. Breathe naturally. You will feel sleepy almost directly. Then you close your eyes, and that is all." Mabel laid the tube on the table and stood up. She was completely herself now. "Give me a kiss, sister," she said. The nurse nodded and smiled to her once more at the door. But Mabel hardly noticed it; again she was looking towards the window. "I shall come back in half-an-hour," said Sister Anne. Then her eyes caught a square of white upon the centre table. "Ah! that letter!" she said. "Yes," said the girl absently. "Please take it." The nurse took it up, glanced at the address, and again at Mabel. Still she hesitated. "In half-an-hour," she repeated. "There is no hurry at all. It doesn't take five minutes.... Good-bye, my dear." But Mabel was still looking out of the window, and made no answer. III Mabel stood perfectly still until she heard the locking of the door and the withdrawal of the key. Then once more she went to the window and clasped the sill. From where she stood there was visible to her first the courtyard beneath, with its lawn in the centre, and a couple of trees growing there--all plain in the brilliant light that now streamed from her window, and secondly, above the roofs, a tremendous pall of ruddy black. It was the more terrible from the contrast. Earth, it seemed, was capable of light; heaven had failed. It appeared, too, that there was a curious stillness. The house was, usually, quiet enough at this hour: the inhabitants of that place were in no mood for bustle: but now it was more than quiet; it was deathly still: it was such a hush as precedes the sudden crash of the sky's artillery. But the moments went by, and there was no such crash: only once again there sounded a solemn rolling, as of some great wain far away; stupendously impressive, for with it to the girl's ears there seemed mingled a murmur of innumerable voices, ghostly crying
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