Miss Etta as she bent over him. She shook her head.

"No," she said audibly, "not yet."

With one brown, fleshless hand, that lay outside the covers, he made a
gesture of resignation, but the gray eyes, turning towards me, burned
black.

I could make out fragmentary bits of conversation that issued from the
corner of the room.

"When it comes to one's own blood--"

The rest was lost in a surge of wind and rain.

"An awful girl--"

"She ought to be--"

A low rumble came down the hill, followed by a more terrific onslaught
of rain. Outside the clap of a door came as a relief. There were steps,
then, just as I had expected, the door was thrust back and she stood
there letting in the fresh air of heaven, a slender sheaf of gray in her
long coat and small fur toque.

A satirical gleam of triumph gleamed across the sick man's face and
vanished, leaving him a wronged and silently passive creature.

"You can shut the door tight, now you've _come_," said Miss Etta. "A
draft won't do him any good."

With this greeting she turned her back. There was a moment's silence,
while Lisbeth pushed shut the flimsy door, and I, to cover her
embarrassment, helped her make it fast. I noticed then that she was
carrying a small leather case.

"Thermos bottles," she explained, as an aroma of comfort escaped them.
But the man on the bed shook his head, as she approached.

"Not now," he said plaintively. His look reproached her. Tears stood
thickly in Miss Etta's eyes. She pulled Lisbeth aside with a series of
jerks at her elbow.

"Too late for that now," I heard her whisper sententiously. And then:
"You had your chance."

I saw the hand, that disengaged Miss Etta's clutch, tremble; and for an
instant I thought the girl would break down under the benumbing
thickness of their emotion. But she merely unfastened her coat, walking
towards the window as though seeking composure, as I had, in the cold
shadows without, in the blurred outlines of the old mill and the
intrepid row of turkeys.

He beckoned to her, but she did not see him. Rapidly failing as he was,
I was certain that he was by no means without power of speech. I touched
her on the arm. His words came finally in monotonous cadences.

"I am dy-ing," he said. "You will--pray?"

I saw her catch her breath. My own hung in my throat and choked me. He
was watching her intently now with overweighted gray eyes, that could
not make one entirely forget the long cunning line of