ill thought he might
get in to town that night. A bright flame of colour leaped over the
woman's pale face, and then the next moment faded as her hands with the
note in them fell listlessly to her lap.

"He ain't made no strike yet," Katrine heard her mutter to herself.

"You don't know," rejoined Katrine, looking up flushed and warm from her
hard work. "He may have some good news to tell you any way."

Annie merely shook her head and gazed out of the window.

"He'd have told me," she murmured, and that was all.

Katrine had a long and heavy round of visits to make that day, and for
two long hours she sat motionless by a dying woman's bedside, fearing to
withdraw her hand, to which the poor terrified enterer into the Valley
of the Shadow was clinging. In her arms, and with her tired head on
Katrine's young bosom, the woman drew her last breath; and Katrine,
feeling her own soul wrenched asunder and her body aching with strain
and shock, came round in the afternoon to Annie. She would not say a
word to her of the death-bed from which she had come. With an effort she
talked of cheerful things, of the spring-time that was on its way to
them, of the pleasure of seeing Will again, and so on, till her head
ached. She did a few domestic offices for the girl, and then feeling she
must break down herself if she stayed longer, she said she needed sleep,
and if Annie could take care of herself for a time she would go and lie
down. Annie noticed how heavy the lids were over her eyes and begged her
to go at once, though a strange fear, like a child's of the dark, came
over her.

"Will will be soon with you now--the best company," Katrine said, with a
tired smile; "and if you want me, a knock on the wall here will bring me
to you," and Annie was left alone.

As the afternoon closed in her cough seemed to grow more and more
troublesome; the pain in her chest, too, had never been so bad; she had
to keep her hand there all the time as she laboured round the room
putting everything to rights, making sure that the cabin was neat and
tidy against Will's return. At last she sat down in the circle of hot
light round the fire, and little Tim crawled into her lap. She put her
arms round him and held him absently. She was thinking over Katrine's
words. The Spring! were they really near it? "so near," she had said,
"it was almost here." Her eyes looking upwards to the darkening windows
caught the old and smoke-hued almanac pinned up to th