n her Church
Service. Hilda sat nearer to the bed, her elbow on the table, shading
her eyes from the lamp, and watched.

"Is it not odd?" whispered Sister Margaret, as the night wore on. "He
has refused to be confessed before he goes. He will not see the Brother
Superior--or any of them. Strange, is it not?"

Together they watched the quick, short breathing. It seemed strangely
impossible to sleep against such odds. They saw the lines of the face
grow sharper and whiter, the dark eye-sockets sink to a curious
roundness, a greyness gather about the mouth. There were times when they
looked at each other in the last surmise. Yet the feeble pulse
persisted--persisted.

"I believe now," said Sister Margaret, "that he may go on like this
until the morning. I am going to take half an hour's nap. Rouse me at
once if he wakes," and she took an attitude of casual repose, turning
the prayer-book open on her knee for readier use, open at "Prayers for
the Dying."

The jackals had wailed themselves out, and there was a long, dark period
when nothing but the sudden cry of a night bird in the hospital garden
came between Hilda and the very vivid perception she had at that hour of
the value and significance of the earthly lot. She lifted her head and
listened to that; it seemed a comment. Then a harsh quarrelling of
dogs--Christian dogs--arose in the distance and died away, and again
there was night and silence. Suddenly the long singing drone of a
steamer's signal came across the city from the river, once, twice,
thrice; and presently the sparrows began their twittering in the bushes
near the verandah, an unexpected unanimous bird talk that died as
suddenly and as irrelevantly away. A conservancy cart lumbered past,
creaking, the far shrill whistle of an awakening factory cut the air
from Howrah, the first solitary foot smote through the dawn upon the
nearest pavement. The light showed grey beyond the scanty curtains. A
noise of something being moved reverberated in the hospital below, and
Arnold opened his eyes. They made him in a manner himself again, and he
fixed them upon Hilda as if they could never alter. She leaned nearer
him and made a sign of inquiry toward the sleeping Sister, with the
farewells, the commendations of poor mortality speeding itself forth,
lying upon her lap. Arnold comprehended, and she was amazed to see the
mask of his face change itself with a faint smile as he shook his head.
He made a little movement;