Some one was speaking to him.  He knew the voice.  He had known it always and would know it forever.  It was the voice he wanted to hear.  “Grace!” he called.  “Grace!  I want you.  Don’t go!  Don’t go!  Grace! oh, my dear! don’t go!”

Then the voice had gone.  No, it had not gone.  It was still there and he heard it speaking to him, begging him to listen, pleading with him to go somewhere, go back, back to something or other.  And there was an arm about his waist and some one was leading him, helping him.  He broke down and cried childishly and some one cried with him.

Early the next morning, just as day was breaking, a buggy, the horse which drew it galloping, rocked and bumped down the lighthouse lane.  Dr. Parker, his brows drawn together and his lips set with anxiety, was driving.  He had been roused from sleep in the hotel at Hyannis by a boy with a telegram.  “Come quick,” it read.  “Mr. Ellery sick.”  The sender was Noah Ellis, the lightkeeper.  The doctor had hired a fast horse, ridden at top speed to Bayport, gotten a fresh horse there and hurried on.  He stopped at his own house but a moment, merely to rouse his wife and ask her if there was any fresh news.  But she had not even heard of the minister’s seizure.

“My soul, Will!” she cried, “you don’t think it’s the smallpox, do you?”

“Lord knows!  I’m afraid so,” groaned her husband.  “What made me leave him?  I ought to have known better.  If that boy dies, I’ll never draw another easy breath.”

He rushed out, sprang into the buggy, and drove on.  At the ropes, early as it was, he found a small group waiting and gazing at the shanty.  The lightkeeper was there and two or three other men.  They were talking earnestly.

“How is he, Noah?” demanded the doctor, jumping to the ground.

“I don’t know, doc,” replied Ellis.  “I ain’t heard sence last night when I telegraphed you.”

“Haven’t heard?  What do you mean by that?  Haven’t you been with him?”

“No-o,” was the rather sheepish reply.  “You see, I—­I wanted to, but my wife’s awful scart I’ll catch it and—­”

“The devil!” Dr. Parker swore impatiently.  “Who is with him then?  You haven’t left him alone, have you?”

“No-o,” Noah hesitated once more.  “No-o, he ain’t alone.  She’s there.”

“She?  Who?  Keziah Coffin?”

“I don’t cal’late Keziah’s heard it yet.  We was waitin’ for you ’fore we said much to anybody.  But she’s there—­the—­the one that found him.  You see, he was out of his head and wanderin’ up the lane ’most to the main road and she’d been callin’ on Keziah and when she come away from the parsonage she heard him hollerin’ and goin’ on and—­”

“Who did?”

“Why”—­the lightkeeper glanced at his companions—­“why, doc, ’twas Grace Van Horne.  And she fetched him back to the shanty and then come and got me to telegraph you.”

“Grace Van Horne!  Grace Van—­Do you mean to say she is there with him now?”