Winifred looked to her invisible Companion in an agony of entreaty for her mother. Presently Mrs. Gray's voice again arose plaintively from the pillow:
"I am afraid—I am afraid, Winnie. I don't know—the things ahead! These,"—and her poor hands closed themselves over the counterpane as though they would try to hold the tangible, known things—"are slipping away, and I—am afraid."
"God never slips away," whispered Winifred.
"No?" queried the mother. "But I—can't—see Him! I don't—know Him."
So the secret, before unconfessed and unrealized, came out at last. She did not know Him. The church, the service, the minister,—the external routine of a nominally Christian life, all was slipping away into a mist of past that could not be retained. And now the soul stood, a terror-stricken stranger, before the things not known.
"I am afraid," repeated the faint voice.
Winifred longed for words of comfort, but they did not seem at hand.
The white-robed nurse came into the room with a little air of professional authority. "I think our patient should not talk any more just now," she said, and Winifred retired.
She met Hubert in the hall and drew him to her own little sitting-room, where they pleaded with God together for the eternal comfort of the beloved sufferer.
Evening came and Winifred was again by her mother's side.