the stairs. She rose and stood aside to let him pass, looking at him unflinchingly.
"Are you coming back?" she demanded.
"Yes," he answered, "I am coming back."
In half an hour he re-ascended the staircase, bringing his mother with him. When they entered the room in which the dying woman lay, Mrs. Murdoch went to the bed and bent over her.
"My son has brought me to do what I can for you," she said, "and to tell you that he will keep his promise."
The woman looked up. For a moment it seemed that she had forgotten. A change had come upon her even in the intervening half -hour.
"His promise," she said. "Yes, he will keep it."
At midnight she died. Mother and son were in the room, the girl sat in a chair at the bedside. Her hands were clasped upon her knee; she sat without motion. At a few minutes before the stroke of twelve, the woman awoke from the heavy sleep in which she had lain. She awoke with a start and a cry, and lay staring at the girl, whose steady eyes were fixed upon her. Her lips moved, and at last she spoke.
"Forgive me!" she cried. "Forgive me!"
Murdoch and his mother rose, but the girl did not stir.
"For what?" she asked.
"For—" panted the woman, "for——"
But the sentence remained unfinished. The girl did not utter a word. She sat looking at the dying woman in silence—only looking at her, not once moving her eyes from the face which, a moment later, was merely a mask of stone which lay upon the pillow, gazing back at her with a fixed stare.
