to think how he was, or whether he could hear what I
said. I had my message to deliver. "Father," I said, laboring with my
panting breath, "it is for this that heaven has opened, and one whom I
never saw, one whom I know not, has taken possession of me. Had we been
less earthly, we should have seen her--herself, and not merely her image.
I have not even known what she meant. I have been as a fool without
understanding. This is the third time I have come to you with her
message, without knowing what to say. But now I have found it out. This
is her message. I have found it out at last." There was an awful
pause,--a pause in which no one moved or breathed. Then there came a
broken voice out of my father's chair. He had not understood, though I
think he heard what I said. He put out two feeble hands. "Phil--I think I
am dying--has she--has she come for me?" he said.

We had to carry him to his bed. What struggles he had gone through before
I cannot tell. He had stood fast, and had refused to be moved, and now he
fell,--like an old tower, like an old tree. The necessity there was for
thinking of him saved me from the physical consequences which had
prostrated me on a former occasion. I had no leisure now for any
consciousness of how matters went with myself.

His delusion was not wonderful, but most natural. She was clothed in
black from head to foot, instead of the white dress of the portrait. She
had no knowledge of the conflict, of nothing but that she was called for,
that her fate might depend on the next few minutes. In her eyes there was
a pathetic question, a line of anxiety in the lids, an innocent appeal in
the looks. And the face the same: the same lips, sensitive, ready to
quiver; the same innocent, candid brow; the look of a common race, which
is more subtle than mere resemblance. How I knew that it was so I cannot
tell, nor any man. It was the other, the elder,--ah, no! not elder; the
ever young, the Agnes to whom age can never come, she who they say was
the mother of a man who never saw her,--it was she who led her kinswoman,
her representative, into our hearts.

* * * * *

My father recovered after a few days: he had taken cold, it was said, the
day before; and naturally, at seventy, a small matter is enough to upset
the balance even of a strong man. He got quite well; but he was willing
enough afterwards to leave the management of that ticklish kind of
property which involves