My grandmother had been leaning tenderly over her husband who seemed to have sunk back into his sleep; now she looked at me with a piteous terror.

The wind soughed and died away, and in the pause we heard them plainly, wheels on the gravel outside that stopped at the door.
"It is the death-coach," my grandmother said.

I rather saw than heard her say it, for her pale lips seemed incapable of speech.
"No, no," I cried.

"It is nothing of the sort.

It is the messenger I am expecting.