"Jamie Mactavish and Andrew Gray are not here," he said sternly, as though he were a schoolmaster calling the roll. Explanations of the absence murmured out and he came inside, pushing the door to.
Marcella, standing by Wullie, was shivering with nervous dread, and suddenly noting his red-rimmed eyes, blazing and wild, she clutched Wullie's arm.
"Wullie—look at him!" she whispered.
"He's been at the bar'l," muttered Wullie, and with a cry she started forward. But Wullie caught her back gently.
"He knows what he's daein', lassie," he whispered, watching Andrew's face expectantly, and the girl stood petrified beside him. It came to her very certainly that her father had realized he had not strength to make what he called his allegiance to God, and that at the last he had sought the momentary strength of the whisky that he knew would shatter his glass heart.
"That's why he knew he would die to-day," her voice whispered, choked in tears. She felt that she was in the grip of things that were bending and breaking her life as they liked.
And then her father spoke, letting his stick clatter to the ground, and lifting his swollen white hands.
"Friends," he said loudly, "ye have all known me in the old days. I asked ye here to-night to tell ye how I went along the Damascus road and cast my burden on the Lord.... He is not hard to deal with.... There's beasts in us, all of us. They lift their heads out of us and jabber and clamour at us; they tear at us with their claws, but if we throw ourselves on God's strength He crushes the life out of the beasts. We can do nothing till we stop fighting and lean on Him. He is kinder than all our hopes, kinder than all our fears—"
His voice stopped with shot-like suddenness and his hands fell to his side as he swayed. Marcella, Wullie and several others rushed to his side. He fell, dragging the hunchback with him. His eyes, not blazing now, but dimming as quickly as though veils had been drawn across them, sought Marcella as he struggled for breath.
"Father—dear," she said, putting her arm under his grey head as Aunt Janet walked across the room. "Dear—" she whispered, almost shyly, for it was a word that she never used except in whispers to her mother.