d man's forehead; arranged his bed-clothes,
woman-like, before she knelt down; and then the three received the
Sacrament together.

"Don't turn me out," whispered Tom. "It's no concern of mine, of course;
but you are all good creatures, and, somehow, I should like to be with
you."

So Tom stayed; and what thoughts passed through his heart are no concern
of ours.

Frank put the cup to the old man's lips; the lips closed, sipped,--then
opened ... the jaw had fallen.

"Gone," said Grace quietly.

Frank paused, awe-struck.

"Go on, sir," said she, in a low voice. "He hears it all more clearly
than he ever did before." And by the dead man's side Frank finished the
Communion Service.

Grace rose when it was over, kissed the calm forehead, and went out
without a word.

"Tom," said Frank, in a whisper, "come into the next room with me."

Tom hardly heard the tone in which the words were spoken, or he would
perhaps have answered otherwise than he did.

"My father takes the Communion," said he, half to himself. "At least, it
is a beautiful old--"

Howsoever the sentence would have been finished, Tom stopped short--

"Hey?--What does that mean?"

"At last?" gasped Frank, gently enough. "Excuse me!" He was bowed almost
double, crushing Thurnall's arm in the fierce gripe of pain. "Pish!--
Hang it!--Impossible!--There, you are all right now!"

"For the time. I can understand many things now. Curious sensation it
is, though. Can you conceive a sword put in on one side of the waist,
just above the hip-bone, and drawn through, handle and all, till it
passes out at the opposite point?"

"I have felt it twice; and therefore you will be pleased to hold your
tongue and go to bed. Have you had any warnings?"

"Yes,--no,--that is--this morning: but I forgot. Never mind!--What
matter a hundred years hence I There it is again!--God help me!"

"Humph!" growled Thurnall to himself. "I'd sooner have lost a dozen of
these herring-hogs, whom nobody misses, and who are well out of their
life-scrape: but the parson, just as he was making a man!"

There is no use in complaints. In half an hour Frank is screaming like a
woman, though he has bitten his tongue half through to stop his screams.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BLACK HOUND.

Pah! Let us escape anywhere for a breath of fresh air, for even the
scent of a clean turf. We have been watching saints and martyrs--perhaps
not long enough for the good of our souls, but surely