“But you are not sure; only a little while ago you seemed so well,” pleaded Catharine, with tears in her voice.
“Still, I am near the end; the moon is at its full now—” She paused, and looked kindly down into the sad young face uplifted so piteously to hers. This broken sentence had chilled it into paleness.
“You—you do not mean that?” she questioned. “Oh, not so soon!”
Mrs. Barr unlocked her hands, and laid one of them on the anxious creature’s head, tenderly as if she had been smoothing the white plumage of a dove.
“Very soon; it may be to-night; I feel it creeping toward me.”
Catharine uttered a broken cry, and dropping her head, whispered a prayer for strength.
“Or any hour—the doctor thinks it will be sudden; I know it will be soon.”
“Oh, my friend! my dear, dear friend, what shall I do without you!”
“The God who calls me will comfort you, my child.”
There was something ineffably calm and sweet in the dying woman’s voice, but it was very faint.