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.

‘The white horse is spouting music,’ she said.  ’Look!  See how it goes up to mother Mary.  She twists it round her distaff and spins it with her spindle.  See, marquis, see!  Spout, horse, spout.’

She lay silent again for a long time.  The old man sat holding her hand; her mother sat on the farther side of the bed, leaning against one of the foot-posts, and watching the white face of her darling with eyes in which love ruled distraction.  Dorothy sat in one of the window-seats, and listened to the music, which still came surging in, for still the fool blew the bellows, and the blind youth struck the keys.  And still the clouds gathered overhead and sunk towards the earth; and still the horse, which Dorothy had left spouting, threw up his twin-fountain, whose musical plash in the basin as it fell mingled with the sounds of the organ.

‘What is it?’ said Molly, waking up.  ’My head doth not ache, and my heart doth not beat, and I am not affrighted.  What is it?  I am not tired.  Marquis, are you no longer tired?  Ah, now I know!  He cometh!  He is here!—­Marquis, the good Jesu wants Molly’s hand.  Let him have it, marquis.  He is lifting me up.  I am quite well—­quite—­’

The sentence remained broken.  The hand which the marquis had yielded, with the awe of one in bodily presence of the Holy, and which he saw raised as if in the grasp of one invisible, fell back on the bed, and little Molly was quite well.

But she left sick hearts behind.  The mother threw herself on the bed, and wailed aloud.  The marquis burst into tears, left the room, and sought his study.  Mechanically he took his Confessio Amantis, and sat down, but never opened it; rose again and took his Shakespere, opened it, but could not read; rose once more, took his Vulgate, and read: