bolt across the door, and opened the papers
which Nanna had left for him. The first was a bequest to him of the
cottage and all within it; the second was but a little slip on which
the dying woman had written her last sad messages to him:

Oh, my love! my love! Farewell forever! I am come to the end
of my life. I am going away, and I know not where to. All is
dark. But I have cast myself at His feet, and said, "Thy will
be done!"

* * * * *

I am still alive, David. I have been alone all night, and every
breath has been a death-pang. How can His eternal purpose need
my bitter suffering? Oh, that God would pity me! His will be
done!

* * * * *

My love, it is nearly over. _I have seen Vala!_ At last it is
peace--peace! His will be done! Mercy--mercy--mercy--

These pitiful despairs and farewells were written in a large,
childish hand, and on a poor sheet of paper. David spread this
paper upon Vala's couch, and, kneeling down, covered it with tears
and kisses; but anon he lifted it up toward heaven, and prayed as
men pray when they feel prayer to be an immediate and veritable
thing--when they detain God, and clasp his feet, and cling to his
robe, and will not let him go until he bless them.

Christine Yell had seen David enter the cottage, and after an hour
had passed she went to the door intending to speak to him; but
she heard the solemn, mysterious voice of the man praying, and she
went away and called her neighbors, Margaret Jarl and Elga Fae and
Thora Thorson. And they talked of David a little, and then Magnus
Thorson, the father-in-law of Thora, being a very old man, went
alone into Nanna's cottage to see David. And after a while the
women were called, and Christine took with her a plate of fish and
bread which she had prepared; and David was glad of their sympathy.

They sat down outside the door. The tender touch of the gray gloaming
softened the bleak cliffs and the brown moorland, and the heavens
were filled with stars. Then softly and solemnly Christine spoke of
Nanna's long, hard fight with death, and of the spiritual despair
which had intensified her suffering.

"It was in season and out of season that she was at Vala's grave,"
said Christine, "and kneeling and lying on the cold ground above her;
and the end was--what could only be looked for--a cough and a fever,
and the slo