ire was quite upset ... the nurse was like a
heathen, raging at the cook.... Joanna Godden?--she sat all day in Mr.
Martin's study, waiting to be sent for upstairs, but she'd only seen him
once....

Then, when tongues at last were quiet in church, just before the second
lesson, Mr. Pratt read out--

"I publish the banns of marriage between Martin Arbuthnot Trevor,
bachelor, of this parish, and Joanna Mary Godden, spinster, of the
parish of Pedlinge. This is for the first time of asking. If any of you
know any just cause or impediment why these persons should not be joined
together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it."

Sec.23

Martin died early on Monday morning. Joanna was with him at the last,
and to the last she did not believe that he would die--because he had
given up worrying about himself, so she was sure he must feel better.
Three hours before he died he held both her hands and looked at her
once more like a man out of his eyes ... "Lovely Jo," he said.

She had lain down in most of her clothes as usual, in the little spare
room, and between two and three o'clock in the morning the nurse had
roused her.

"You're wanted ... but I'm not sure if he'll know you."

He didn't. He knew none of them--his mind seemed to have gone away and
left his body to fight its last fight alone.

"He doesn't feel anything," they said to her, when Martin gasped and
struggled--"but don't stay if you'd rather not."

"I'd rather stay," said Joanna, "he may know me. Martin ..." she called
to him. "Martin--I'm here--I'm Jo--" but it was like calling to someone
who is already far away down a long road.

There was a faint sweet smell of oil in the room--Father Lawrence had
administered the last rites of Holy Church. His romance and Martin's had
met at his brother's death-bed ... "Go forth, Christian soul, from this
world, in the Name of God--in the name of the Angels and Archangels--in
the name of the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, Martyrs,
Confessors, Virgins, and of all the Saints of God; let thine habitation
to-day be in peace and thine abode in Holy Sion" ... "Martin, it's only
me, it's only Jo" ... Thus the two voices mingled, and he heard neither.

The cold morning lit up the window square, and the window rattled with
the breeze of Rye Bay. Joanna felt someone take her hand and lead her
towards the door. "He's all right now," said Lawrence's voice--"it's
over ..."

Somebody was giving her a glass