inquishes gladly its grasp on life. The
hands of the strong, torn from a world they love, clench and clutch at
the last; it is an involuntary hold on earth. The doctor moved away. The
whining sobs of the old man became more audible. I put my ear to her
cold lips.

"His letters ... the letters ... and ... my book ... I told you of, take
them. Here, in the closet ... by ... the chimney...."

I could hardly distinguish the faint whispers. I raised my hand
impatiently, and the old man stopped moaning. Mrs. Hikes and the doctor
ceased speaking in low undertones. Only a great moth, that had fluttered
inside the lamp chimney thudded heavily from side to side.

"Yes, yes. What shall I do with them?"

She did not speak, and seeing her agonized eyes trying to tell mine, I
cried aloud, "Give her brandy--something. She wants to speak. Oh, give
her a chance to speak!"

The doctor stepped to my side. He lifted the wrist, let it fall, and
shook his head. "Don't you see?" he said. I looked at the eyes, and saw.

Some days later I went to the lonely house. The old man was sitting in a
loose, disconsolate heap in his seat by the apple-tree. The tears rolled
down the wrinkles into his beard, when I spoke of his daughter.

"There were some letters and papers she wished me to have," I said. In
the closet by the chimney. "If you are willing--"

The old man shuffled into the house, and threw open the blinds of the
darkened room. Some one had set the books in neat piles on the table;
the chairs were placed against the wall. The drapery had been washed and
stretched smoothly across the mattress. There were two or three dark
stains on the floor that could not be washed out. The slim little
slipper still decked the wall.

I looked up at the door by the chimney. "Here's the key," said the old
man, brokenly. "I found it to-day under the mattress." I tried it, but
it did not turn in the lock. I was hardly tall enough to reach it. The
old man fetched me a chair on which I stood, and after a moment or two I
felt the rusty lock yield. The little door gave and opened.

Nothing was there, nothing but the dust of years that blackened my
fingers, as I put in my hand, unconvinced by my sense of sight.

"Are you sure no one has been here, no one who could open the closet?"

"Nobody," he proclaimed in the cracked tone of extreme age. "She must
have wandered when she told you that. People wander when they are dying,
you know. Her mother--but that