’But when they left her to herself again,
  Death, like a friend’s voice from a distant field,
  Approaching through the darkness, called.’ — Tennyson.

The summer came and went very quietly.  Gwen remained with Agatha, but was wholly engrossed in her writing.  Sometimes Agatha would remonstrate with her, when she came to breakfast looking worn and haggard, and confessing she had been writing in the study till between two and three in the morning.

’You will wear yourself out.  Why don’t you take it more quietly?  There is no need for such labour.’

‘You would realize the need if you were in my shoes,’ said Gwen, ’and felt your debts hanging over your head every minute of the day.  I will never rest until I have repaid all that has been lost.’

‘But that will be impossible, and unnecessary.’

‘I don’t think so,’ was the curt reply.

Gwen was much up in town, sometimes at the British Museum, and she worked away at Mr. Lester’s manuscripts whenever she could spare time from her usual writing.  One afternoon she rejoiced Agatha’s heart by announcing her intention of taking a walk.

‘I shall stroll over to the Howitts.  Have you any message for Deb?’

’I think not.  I hear that Patty has not been well this last week.  You might take her a little pudding.  Deb was not working at the vicarage this week because of her illness.’

Gwen set out, and the fresh, keen autumn air refreshed and invigorated her.  She found the little cottage nearly hidden from view by the heavily-laden apple trees, but there was a stillness about the place that was not usual.  The door was on the latch, and when she stepped inside the kitchen, it was empty.

However, the door leading into the sisters’ bedroom was ajar, and Gwen found Patty in bed, and Deb vainly endeavouring to make her swallow a basin of gruel.

‘It isn’t gruel I’ll be wantin’, when I know how you burns my best ‘namel saucepan in the doin’ of it.  ’Tis a mercy I’ve got the honey all in, and now there’ll be the apples to be gathered and preserved; and who’s to have the doin’ of it, wi’ you, whose heart and hands are only in the dressmakin’, and me a achin’ and smartin’ wi’ pains from head to toe, and worse to foller?’

’Then I’ll away to the doctor this blessed minit, and Miss Miller will be for sendin’ that parish nurse she’s a startin’ of, and who’s a kickin’ up her heels with naught to keep her out o’ mischief.  She’ll be flyin’ down here wi’ the greatest joy, and will handle your pots and pans as poor me isn’t able, and I’ll be back to my dressmakin’, not being of no manner o’ use in tendin’ a sick sister, who’s that partickler, and full o’ fuss — ’

Deb stopped here, catching sight of Gwen, and her face brightened as she turned to her.

’Come in, my dear; we’re just two quarrelsome old women, as you know, and Patty, poor thing! is a new hand at illness.  ‘Tis a bad attack o’ cold in the innards — flannelation o’ the lung, a neighbour thinks; but she be a contrary patient, and she won’t have no doctor.’

Gwen stepped up to the invalid, and looked down with pity upon the thin gaunt frame stretched on the tiny bed.  Patty’s face was flushed, her lips dry and parched, and her eyes feverishly bright.  She seemed very talkative.

’Come in, miss, and welcome.  Better in here, where I can see things is what they should be, than out in the kitchen, which to my certain knowledge hasn’t been cleaned out proper since I took to bed, and that was week ago yesterday.  If I could get better, please God, I never would put off the scrubbin’ out o’ the cupboards agen.  Twas Toosday, the day for to do ’em, and I says to myself, “I seem strangely tired, I’ll leave it till tomorrow;” and Wednesday found me in my bed, too bad to move, and the cupboards hasn’t had their right chance yet, and Deb she be but a poor cleaner.  Ay, dearie me, it’ll go hard wi’ me if I’m not so much as able to wash myself, and — but there, the good Lord will take me home when it comes to that, for when my cleanin’ days be over my livin’ days will be over too.’

‘Now look here,’ said Gwen authoritatively, ’you are talking yourself into a fever.  Lie still, take your gruel, and hear me do the talking.  Now, Deb, give me the stuff.  It looks delicious.  I’ll turn nurse.’

There was no resisting Gwen.  Patty took it from her hands as meekly as a child, and Deb heaved a deep sigh of relief when she saw the last drop swallowed.

‘’Tis a great gift to be determined in your will,’ she said to Gwen.  ’Patty never has had any who could master her.  We be both so masterful; that is where all the trouble cometh between us.’

‘Determination, or, rather, self will, has been my curse,’ said Gwen, with a smile and a sigh.

‘Now has it now?’ said Deb, leaning her bare elbows on the bed rail, and looking at her with interest.  ’Folk do say in the village that you met with a deal o’ trouble out in them foreign parts, and some haythen rascal robbed you of all you stood up in.  When you come to see us after your return, we kept quiet, not likin’ to ask; but Patty says to me when you’d a gone, “She’s been through a deal o’ trouble, for there be hard lines on her face, and a sad ring in her laugh,” and we felt mortal sorry for you, my dear.’

‘Tis a good thing to have a will,’ said Patty from her pillows, ’so long as it don’t get above the Lord’s will.’

‘That it couldn’t never do,’ quickly returned Deb; ’for God Almighty can snap a body’s will like dry twigs, and He be our Master.  ’Tis a blasphemous thing to try to get the better o’ our Maker; and Miss Gwen’s will be not that sort.’

‘I think it has been,’ said Gwen, sitting down and softly stroking one of Patty’s withered old hands.  ’I thought I could manage my life and everybody else’s independent of God, and He has shown me my mistake.  It has been a bitter lesson, but I hope I have learnt it.’

There was silence.  Something in the simplicity and quaintness of this old couple always drew out Gwen’s best feelings, and she spoke to them of things she would never mention to any one else.

‘We’ve heerd say,’ said Deb, after a pause, ’that all you young ladies have lost your money.  But that, may be, is only a tale.’

‘Very close to truth,’ said Gwen; ’and my earnest desire is to earn as much money as possible.  Can you tell me how to do it?’

‘Young ladies set about such things different to us,’ said Deb, thoughtfully.

Patty looked up quickly.

’If so be that this is my last sickness, you’ll not be long after me, Deb, I’m thinkin’, and then what about the golden russet?  Will Miss Gwen like to have the use o’ it?’

Gwen thought her mind was wandering, until she saw how fearfully Deb looked round the room, as if afraid any neighbour might be within hearing.

’Hush you now!  ‘Tis not the time to be talkin’ of our savin’s.  Miss Gwen will take no notice o’ such talk.’

And Gwen did not, only chatted on till Patty seemed to grow more restless, and then she took her leave.  When she told Agatha how she had found them, Agatha at once resolved to send the doctor.

’She may die.  So often, when once people like her give up and take to their bed, they never leave it again.’

The doctor went, and thought very gravely of Patty’s state.  Agatha and Gwen were constant visitors at the cottage, and did much to comfort poor Deb, who, now convinced that her sister might never recover, was overwhelmed with misery.

‘We come into the world together, and we’re bound to go out together,’ she kept repeating; ‘it ain’t likely as how she’ll leave me behind.’

And if a neighbour would assure her that she was well and strong, and likely to survive her sister for many years, she would only shake her head and say, ’’Tis against nature; and if so be as her days are numbered, then so is mine, and I shall be taken, disease or no disease.’

She went about the cottage in a solemn way, turning out old hoards, writing in crabbed handwriting directions about various matters, and Gwen came upon a scrap of paper one day with the following items: —

Cost of two plain coffins . . .  Parish clerk’s fee . . . . . . .  Bit of ground by the corner yew.  Bearers for Patty . . . . . . .  Bearers for Deborah . . . . . .

The spaces left she evidently meant to fill up.  Gwen promptly burnt the paper, and took her to task about it; but nothing would comfort her, or convince her that by any possibility she could outlive her sister.

And then one evening, quietly and simply, like a little child, Patty passed away.  Her last words were to her sister: —

‘The good Lord has got me, Deb, and He’ll not let me fall.’

Deb sat by her bedside as one stunned.  She looked up pitifully when Gwen came to her side.

‘I’m still here — but I’m just waitin’ my call.’

It was with difficulty that she could be induced to eat anything, and when the time came for Patty to be carried to the grave, she saw the little party of mourners set out in stony unconcern.

’They might have let her bide till I were ready to go, too.  It’ll be a double expense, and I can’t be here much longer.’

Gwen’s heart went out to the desolate old woman, and she hardly let a day pass without going over to see her.  About a week after, she went one afternoon, but found the house closed.  The stillness and desertion of the cottage sent a thrill of fear through her.  Fearing that Deb’s mind had become slightly unhinged, she wondered if she had destroyed her own life.  She tried the door, but it was locked; and then she noticed a piece of paper tucked into the sill.  Taking it out, she read: —

’If you be Miss Gwen, the key is under the water butt; if you be any other body, let it be.  Deb.’

Gwen took the key up, unlocked the door, and went in.  The kitchen was spotlessly clean, the grate shining with blacklead.  On the square deal table lay a letter with her name upon it.  But before reading it, Gwen hastily searched the house, to make certain that it was empty, and then she perused the badly written epistle.

’Miss Gwen, —

’Your humble servant Deborah Howlitt write these lines to you hoping it may find you as it leaves her at present knowing your kind heart, and I always did have a leaning towards you more than most, and so did Patty for her said you were a woman of good understanding I think it best to leave you all our savings which you will find under our golden russet in my mother’s china tea-pot, for Patty said the same when she were a dying.  And you will use them to save you from the House if your money has gone from you.  Will you be so good as to give the clothes in our chest of drawers to them that need them.  We did think of turning our brown serges, and if they were ripped round the bottom and braided afresh would be good Sunday skirts.  I have been to our grave three nights running for I heard her calling, but the good God won’t take me yet.  I’m going to-night, and may be I shall not be back.  Patty could not say I have not cleaned for there is no speck of dirt to be seen.  And now goodbye and never put your will against the Almighty for I am praying not to do it myself for I am a poor old desolate woman and if He says “Live,” I will live, but He seems to say to-night “Come,” and, –­

  “Just as I am, without one plea,
  But that Thy blood was shed for me,
  And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
  O Lamb of God, I come!”

’Your obedient servant,
  ‘DEBORAH HOWLITT.’

Gwen hurriedly left the cottage after reading this, and went straight to the churchyard.  No one evidently had been near Patty’s grave that day, for there, lying in long grass, with her arms crossed on the uncovered mound, and her grey head bowed upon them, was the cold, stiff form of poor Deb.  How many hours she had been there in the still coldness of an October’s night no one could tell; but the doctor put down her death to grief and exposure.  Gwen broke the tidings to Agatha with a sob in her voice.

‘I loved those old women.  They were the only friends I had here.’