Later in the evening there came that decided lightening which so often precedes death. Margot asked for Norman, and while he knelt beside her, she gave him some instructions about her burial, and charged him to stand by his sister Christine. “She’ll be her lane,” she said, “’til my year is gane by, and the warld hates a lone woman who fends for hersel’. Stay wi’ Christine tonight. Tell Christine to come to me.”
When Christine was at her side, she asked, “Do you remember the verses in the wee, green book?”
“Called ‘Coming’?”
“Ay”—and she added very slowly the first few words she wished to hear—“It may be when the midnight——”
“Is heavy upon the land,
And the black waves lying dumbly
Along the sand,
When the moonless night draws close,
And the lights are out in the house,
When the fires burn low and red,