With a glance and sign to her mistress.  Dorothy rose and crept from the room, crossed the court and the moat, and dragged her heavy heart up the long stair to the top of the keep.  Arrived there, she looked down through a battlement, and fixed her eyes on a certain window, whence presently she caught the wave of a signal-handkerchief.

At the open window stood lady Margaret with Molly in her arms.  The night was so warm that the child could take no hurt; and indeed what could hurt her, with the nameless fever-moth within, fretting a passage for the new winged body which, in the pains of a second birth, struggled to break from its dying chrysalis.

‘Now, Molly, tell the horse to spout,’ said lady Margaret, with such well-simulated cheerfulness as only mothers can put on with hearts ready to break.

‘Mother Mary, tell the horse to spout,’ said Molly; and up went the watery parabolas.

The old flame of delight flushed the child’s cheek, like the flush in the heart of a white rose.  But it died almost instantly, and murmuring, ‘Thanks, good madam!’ whether to mother Mary or mother Margaret little mattered, Molly turned towards the bed, and her mother knew at her heart that the child sought her last sleep—­as we call it, God forgive us our little faith!  ‘Madam!’ panted the child, as she laid her down.  ‘Darling?’ said the mother.  ’Madam, I would see my lord marquis.’  ‘I will send and ask him to come.’  ’Let Robert say that Molly is going—­going—­where is Molly going, madam?’ ’Going to mother Mary, child,’ answered lady Margaret, choking back the sobs that would have kept the tears company.  ‘And the good Jesu ?’ ‘Yes.’—­’And the good God over all ?’ ‘Yes, yes.’  ’I want to tell my lord marquis.  Pray, madam, let him come, and quickly.’

His lordship entered, pale and panting.  He knew the end was approaching.  Molly stretched out to him one hand instead of two, as if her hold upon earth were half yielded.  He sat down by the bedside, and wiped his forehead with a sigh.

‘Thee tired too, marquis?’ asked the odd little love-bird.

‘Yes, I am tired, my Molly.  Thou seest I am so fat.’

’Shall I ask the good mother, when I go to her, to make thee spare like Molly?’

’No, Molly, thou need’st not trouble her about that.  Ask her to make me good.’

’Would it then be easier to make thee good than to make thee spare, marquis?’

‘No, child—­much harder, alas!’

‘Then why—?’ began Molly; but the marquis perceiving her thought, made haste to prevent it, for her breath was coming quick and weak.

’But it is so much better worth doing, you see.  If she makes me good, she will have another in heaven to be good to.’

’Then I know she will.  But I will ask her.  Mother Mary has so many to mind, she might be forgetting.’

After this she lay very quiet with her hand in his.  All the windows of the room were open, and from the chapel came the mellow sounds of the organ.  Delaware had captured Tom Fool and got him to blow the bellows, and through the heavy air the music surged in.  Molly was dozing a little, and she spoke as one that speaks in a dream.