Hannah said: "Mother, mother, Christ will save you; pray to Him," and her mother whispered once more:
"Tell father and Margaret—and there will be James, too." Then the breathing grew quicker, and the death-rattle came in her throat, and Margaret put her hands to her own throat and covered her mouth, and crouched lower and lower towards the floor, so that she might not cry out in her agony. Then all was still, and she knew that her mother had died.
"She is better off; God be merciful to her, a sinner," Hannah said, and sat down in the arm-chair at the bedside. It seemed to Margaret as if hours went by while she cowered and rocked in her hiding-place, hoping that presently the dead would be left alone for a little, and that then she might creep out and see her mother's face once more.
But this was not to be, for when Hannah rose she called down the staircase: "Towsey, you can come; we must make her ready." Then she came back into the room, and it seemed as if some spirit had whispered to her, for she walked round the bed and moved the screen behind which Margaret was hidden. She started back almost in horror when she saw the crouching figure.
"Margaret! is it you that have dared?"
Margaret stood up and faced her, and even Hannah saw that the young face was drawn with misery, and that her lips trembled.
"It is you that dared not to send for me," she said, in an agonized voice.
Hannah turned to the bed and drew the sheet over their mother's face.
"I wrote to you this afternoon, telling you that she was ill, though you had no right to be here." So the sisters had both written, and neither letter had reached its destination in time.