“Is it morning?” she asked of Sister Angela who sat beside her.

“Yes, dear heart.”

“Raise the shade, Sister.”  Then, as Angela raised it—­“Why, how strange!  What is that, Sister?”

Angela looked and saw The Ship!  In that hour when vitality runs low and with the past horrors of the night still holding her, all the superstition of The Gap claimed her.

“I—­I was afraid I would lose the ship.”  Meredith’s mind wandered back to her hurried home-leaving; the dread that the ship that was to bear her from the Philippines might have gone.  The mystic Ship upon The Rock was all that was needed to fix her fancy.

“But—­I was in time.  I am in time.  The Ship—­is waiting.  Everything is all right now!—­quite all right, Sister?”

Angela went close to the bed.

“My dear one!” she whispered and slipped her arm under Meredith’s head.

“It all seems so—­plain in the morning, Sister.  It is the night that makes us afraid.  The night!  I cannot remember—­what it was—­I dreamed.”

“Never mind, little girl”—­Angela’s tears were dropping on the soft, smooth hair that was growing clammy; she felt the cold breath on her face—­“never mind, little girl, the dream is past.”

“Sister, it was a bad dream.  I do not like bad dreams—­tell Doris—­what is it that I want you to tell Doris?”

“Try to sleep, beloved.”  Angela knelt.

Meredith slipped back to her childhood—­she gave a short, hurting laugh.  “Tell her—­tell Doris—­I did try to learn my lesson—­but——­”

It was the opening of the door that startled Angela into consciousness.  Doris Fletcher stood within the room.  Her eyes took in the scene, the pretty face against Sister Angela’s bosom; the sunlight lying full across the bed and picking out into a gleam the golden cross that hung to the floor.

“I’m too—­late!”

Agony rang in the quiet words.

“And I’ve travelled day and night!  Her letter was forwarded to me.”

The letter burned against Doris’s bosom like a tangible thing.  She crossed the room and sank beside the bed.

They all slipped through the following days as people do who realize that troubles do not come to them, but are overtaken on the way.  They seemed always to have been there; some people pass on the other side, but if one’s path lies close, then one must go with what courage possible—­look hard, feel and groan with the understanding, and pass on as best he can bearing the memory with him.

Father Noble came from many miles back in the hills.  Riding his sturdy little horse, his loose black cloak floating like benignant wings bearing him on; his radiant old face shining even in the face of death.

He stayed until the wound in the hillside was covered over Meredith’s little form; stayed to see the flowers hide the scar, murmuring again and again:  “In the hope of joyful resurrection.”  His was the task to bridge life and death, and there was no doubt in his beautiful soul.