She waited in an intense, expectant silence.
There was a faint breathing from the lips, she stooped, and caught it.
'Kiss me!' said the whisper, and she laid her soft fresh lips to the parched mouth of the dying.

When she lifted her head again Mary still held her hand; Catherine softly stretched out hers for the opiate Dr.
Baker had left; it was swallowed without resistance, and a quiet to which the invalid had been a stranger for days stole little by little over the wasted frame.

The grasp of the fingers relaxed, the labored breath came more gently, and in a few more minutes she slept.

Twilight was long over.

The ghost-hour was passed, and the moon outside was slowly gaining a wider empire in the clearing heavens.
It was a little after ten o'clock that Rose drew aside the curtain at Burwood and looked out.
'There is the lantern,' she said to Agnes, 'just by the vicarage.