“Winnie, dear, is that you?” said a faint voice from the bed.

“Yes, mother.”

“Come here, dear, let me look at you.”

Winifred went and sat beside her where they could look into each other’s faces.

“Dear, do you think I am very ill?  Does the doctor say so?”

“He has not said much, mother.  But he is taking every care.”

“Yes, I see.  What do you think, child?”

“I do not know, mother.  But we hope you are getting on as well as possible.”

“Winnie,” said she again, and her voice came with difficulty, “I think I am very ill.  I have had sickness before, but not like this.  Things seem slipping away.”

Winifred’s eyes filled with tears, but she forced them back.  “Do not think that, mother,” she pleaded.

“They are all slipping away,” insisted the sick woman.  “Every one—­father, Hubert, you—­everyone—­everything I know—­all slipping away.”

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.

“Winifred,” said the gentle voice, stronger to-night for the increased fever.

“Yes, dear mother?”

“Winnie, dear, would you be afraid if—­if you were ill—­like me?—­if you were going to—­”

“To die,” she was about to say, but she could not speak the word.  She shivered instead, as though a cold wind had struck her.

Winifred did not wait for the unwelcome word.

“No—­I think not, mother,” she said simply.

“Why not?  Is it not dark—­what we do not know?”

“But I know God,” said Winifred earnestly, “and Jesus Christ.  And they are there—­in the things we cannot see.  The Apostle Paul said, ’For me to live is Christ; to die is gain.’”