if God sent it to me. What can
I do? How can I send to William Foster? I don't know where he is. Could
that Mr. Berrand----?"

"Mother," Catherine said. "Leave it to me, I will bring William Foster
to you."

She was trembling. But the invalid, exhausted with the excitement of the
conversation, was growing drowsy. She sank down again in her pillows.

"Yes," she murmured. "I--might--tell--him--William Foster."

She slept heavily.

"Mark," Catherine said to her husband the next day. "Mother is dying.
She can only live a very few days."

"Oh, Kitty! How grieved I am!"

His face was full of the most tender sympathy. He took her hand gently
and kissed her.

"My Kitty, how will you bear this great sorrow?"

"Mark," Catherine said, and her voice sounded curiously strained.
"Mother wants very much to see you, before she dies. She has something
to say to you. I think she cares more about seeing you than about
anything else in the world."

Mark looked surprised.

"I will go to her at once," he said. "What can it be? Ah, it must be
something about you."

"No, I don't think so."

"What then?"

"She will tell you, Mark. It is better she should tell you herself."

"I will go to her then. I will go now."

"Wait a moment"--Catherine was very pale--"Promise me, Mark, that you
won't--you won't be angry if--if mother--you will----"

She stopped. Her emotion was painful. Mark was more and more puzzled.

"Angry with your mother? At such a time!" he said.

"No--you wouldn't. I am upset. I am foolish. Let me go first to tell her
you are coming. Follow me in a few minutes."

She went out leaving her husband amazed. When she arrived in Eaton
Square Mr. Ardagh met her in the hall.

"She is worse," he said. "Much worse. The end cannot be far off."

"The beginning," Catherine said, looking him straight in the eyes.

He understood then which parental spirit had conquered the spirit of the
child, and he smiled--sadly or gladly? He hardly knew. So strangely does
death play with us all. Catherine went upstairs into her mother's room,
which was dim and very hot. She shut the door, sent away the nurse, and
went up to the bedside.

"Mother," she said, "William Foster is coming. Do you feel that you can
see him?"

Mrs. Ardagh was perfectly conscious, although so near death.

"Yes," she said. "God means me to give him a message--God means me."

She lay silent; Catherine sat by her. Presently she spoke again.

"I shall co