“Yes.  It says that in the Bible, of course.  ‘I am the Way—­’ Only I suppose there comes a time when God has got to the end of you, and then you’re not a path any longer.  And all that’s left then is to give your body and blood and get out of the way of others.”

“Yes.  I can grasp that.  I feel that God has walked along me and all the other footmarks have gone.  Now, when I am weak, and hungering for strength, He gives His body and blood.  Yes, I think I understand that—­in a glass darkly.  Some day I’ll come to it more clearly.”

That night, when he held out his hand for a cup of milk, Marcella noticed that it was swollen like his feet; the left hand was bony and flexible and still a little brown.  The right hand was thick and puffed and very white.  When he stretched his fingers to take the cup she saw that they were stiff and difficult to move.  He shook his head and dropped his hand on to the sheet, looking at it reflectively.

“The last lap is nearly done, Marcella.  This poor old heart of mine will be drowned very soon, now.”

Marcella began to cry and her father looked at her as though surprised.  Suddenly he leaned over and stroked her hair.  She cried all the more; it was the first tender thing she could remember his doing to her, the first caress he had ever given her.

“I wish I’d been good to ye, Marcella—­I think often, now, of that poor wee broken arm, and how ye used to cower away from me!  I wish I’d got a grip on myself sooner.”

“Oh, if you make me love you any more, father, I’ll be torn in bits,” she cried, and sobbed, and could not be comforted.  It was her only break from inarticulateness—­it surprised herself and her father almost as though she had said something indecent.

When he knew, quite definitely, that he was dying and need not conserve his strength, some of the old tyranny came back to Andrew Lashcairn.  But it was a kindly, rather splendid tyranny, the sort of tyranny that makes religious zealots send unbelievers to the stake, killing the body for the soul’s sake.  Much of the evangelism the little white-faced cousin had superimposed upon his mind that night of wild passions had gone now, burnt up as he drew nearer to simple, beautiful, essential things.

As the Feast of All Souls, the time when ghosts thronged on Lashnagar, drew near he brooded in silence for hours.  Through one of his choking attacks he lay passive, scarcely fighting for breath; only once did he turn supplicating eyes on Aunt Janet, mutely demanding the drug that soothed.  And when he was able to speak again, he told them what he had been thinking.

“I want to tell people,” he said, speaking very rapidly.  “The mantle of prophecy has fallen upon me.”

“Ye’ve tauld us, Andrew—­and that’s enough,” said Aunt Janet, who had no patience with his frequent swift rushes towards a climax.

“I’m going to tell the others.  I’m going to testify to the power of His might,” he said just as grimly, gripping his stiff, cold hands together.