does not come with houses or with gold,
  With place, with honour and a flattering crew;

and to him, too, the same tasked pipe and tired throat, the same struggle with the “life of men unblest,” the same impatient tryst with death.

The lovely lines ran dirge-like in his head, as he sat, sunk in grief, beside his friend.  Hallin did not speak; but his eye took note of every change of light, of every darkening tone, as the quiet English scene with its villages, churches, and woods, withdrew itself plane by plane into the evening haze.  His soul followed the quiet deer, the homing birds, loosening itself gently the while from pain and from desire, saying farewell to country, to the poor, to the work left undone, and the hopes unrealised—­to everything except to love.

It had just struck six when he bent forward to the window beneath which ran the wide front terrace.

“That was her step!” he said, while his face lit up, “will you bring her here?”

* * * * *

Marcella rang the bell at the Court with a fast beating heart.  The old butler who came gave what her shrinking sense thought a forbidding answer to her shy greeting of him, and led her first into the drawing-room.  A small figure in deep black rose from a distant chair and came forward stiffly.  Marcella found herself shaking hands with Miss Raeburn.

“Will you sit and rest a little before you go upstairs?” said that lady with careful politeness, “or shall I send word at once?  He is hardly worse—­but as ill as he can be.”

“I am not the least tired,” said Marcella, and Miss Raeburn rang.

“Tell his lordship, please, that Miss Boyce is here.”

The title jarred and hurt Marcella’s ear.  But she had scarcely time to catch it before Aldous entered, a little bent, as it seemed to her, from his tall erectness, and speaking with an extreme quietness, even monotony of manner.

“He is waiting for you—­will you come at once?”

He led her up the central staircase and along the familiar passages, walking silently a little in front of her.  They passed the long line of Caroline and Jacobean portraits in the upper gallery, till just outside his own door Aldous paused.

“He ought not to talk long,” he said, hesitating, “but you will know—­of course—­better than any of us.”

“I will watch him,” she said, almost inaudibly, and he gently opened the door and let her pass, shutting it behind her.

The nurse, who was sitting beside her patient, got up as Marcella entered, and pointed her to a low chair on his further side.  Susie Hallin rose too, and kissed the new-comer hurriedly, absently, without a word, lest she should sob.  Then she and the nurse disappeared through an inner door.  The evening light was still freely admitted; and there were some candles.  By the help of both she could only see him indistinctly.  But in her own mind, as she sat down, she determined that he had not even days to live.