“That’s what I’m here for – to make you comfortable. This isn’t like you, Mother,” Joanna chided, drawing herself gently away and looking about the dark, untidy little room. “What a mess! Linnet is a bad nurse. Shall I tidy up a bit before the doctor comes, or is there anything I can get for you first?” She tried to speak with composure.

“No, dear. Tidy … I’d like th’ room tidied … but leave the bed … no pain now … but must keep still … don’t touch …”

Joanna who was trying to open the deep-set, impossible window, looked round aghast. The sick woman beginning the sentence distinctly enough, was now mumbling like a drunken person, and at the end of the mumble there was a little, dreadful gulp. Running to the bedside the girl saw that a change had come over the face on the pillow.

“Linnet!” she called out loudly. “Fetch the doctor! And run! Run!”

As if he had been waiting for that word, Linnet sped from the cottage.

And now Juley’s face had changed still more. She raised her strong, beautiful voice in what seemed urgent speech, but Joanna, to her despair, could not distinguish a word, not even a syllable in the sounds that came. She would have given her life to read the meaning in the eyes that gazed with such intentness of supplication into hers. But she could not.

She tried to find some comfort in the strength of her mother’s voice. Dying people surely spoke feebly?

“Don’t talk now, darling. It will tire you. I’m not going away. We can talk afterwards. Shall I read to you … the morning verses?” Joanna pleaded. And she held up the familiar, worn copy of Daily Light with its stamped leather covers and a star on the back, which had lain by Juley’s bedside these forty years.

But Juley shook her head emphatically.

“No, no!” she said – “not now.” And having clearly uttered these words she babbled off again, vehement but incomprehensible.

Then she stopped speaking, and a look of extreme surprise crossed her face.

Joanna, beside herself with helplessness, tried to give her water in a tea-spoon, tried brandy and water. But the liquid only ran down outside the unconscious mouth …

And the next moment Juley’s face passed from surprise to profound preoccupation. She seemed to sink within herself, drew one long, terrible breath, and frowned intently. Joanna looked for the first time upon death.

VII