To his surprise it was opened by Hetty:  but at once he guessed the reason.

“Mother?”

“Hist!  The end is very near—­a few hours perhaps.”  She kissed him.  “I have been with her these five days, taking turns with the others.  They are all here—­Emmy and Sukey and Nancy and Pat.  Charles cannot be fetched in time, I fear.”

“He was in North Wales when he last wrote.”

“Listen!”—­a sound of soft singing came down the stairway.  “They are singing his hymn to her:  she begs us constantly to sing to her.”

     “Jesu, Lover of my soul,
        Let me to thy bosom fly
      While the nearer waters roll—­”

Sang the voices overhead as John followed his sister into the small sitting-room.

“What do the doctors say?”

“There is nothing to be said.  She feels no pain; has no disease.  It is old age, brother, loosening the cords.”

“She is happy?”

“Ah, so happy!” Hetty’s eyes brimmed with tears and she turned away.

“Sister, that happiness is for you too.  Why have you, alone of us, so far rejected it?”

“No—­not now!” she protested.  “Speak to me some other time and I will listen:  not now, when my body and heart are aching!”

Her sisters sang: 

     “Other refuge have I none;
        Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
      Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
        Still support and comfort me! 
      All my trust on Thee is stay’d,
        All my help from Thee I bring: 
      Cover my defenceless head
        With the shadow of Thy wing!”

She stepped to the door with a feeble gesture of the hands.  She knew that, worn as he was with his journey, if she gave him the chance he would grasp it and pause, even while his mother panted her last, to wrestle for and win a soul—­not because she, Hetty, was his sister; simply because hers was a soul to be saved.  Yes, and she foresaw that sooner or later he would win:  that she would be swept into the flame of his conquest:  yet her poor bruised spirit shrank back from the flame.  She craved only to be let alone, she feared all new experience, she distrusted even the joy of salvation.  Life had been too hard for Hetty.

He followed her up the stairs to his mother’s room, and entering commanded his sisters with a gesture to sing the hymn to an end.  They did so.  Mrs. Wesley lay propped on the pillows, her wasted face turned to the light, a faint smile on her lips.  For a little while after the hymn ended she lay silent with no change on her face.  They doubted if she saw John or, seeing, had recognised him.  But by and by her lips moved and she murmured his name.

“Jacky!”

He stepped to the bedside, and with his hand covered the transparent hand with its attenuated marriage ring.

“I like them—­to sing to me,” she whispered.  “When—­when I am released—­sing—­a psalm of praise to God.  Promise me.”