where a scrap of fire still glowed, she rocked herself gently in the
darkness.

After about half an hour Mr. Baines's voice sounded at the head of the
stairs:

'Miss Beechinor, will ye kindly step up? We shall want some
asseestance.'

She obeyed, but not instantly.

In the bedroom Mr. Baines, a fountain-pen between his fine white teeth,
was putting some coal on the fire. He stood up as she entered.

'Mr. Beechinor is about to make a new will,' he said, without removing
the pen from his mouth, 'and ye will kindly witness it.'

The small room appeared to be full of Baines--he was so large and fleshy
and assertive. The furniture, even the chest of drawers, was dwarfed
into toy-furniture, and Beechinor, slight and shrunken-up, seemed like a
cadaverous manikin in the bed.

'Now, Mr. Beechinor.' Dusting his hands, the lawyer took a newly-written
document from the dressing-table, and, spreading it on the lid of a
cardboard box, held it before the dying man. 'Here's the pen. There!
I'll help ye to hold it.'

Beechinor clutched the pen. His wrinkled and yellow face, flushed in
irregular patches as though the cheeks had been badly rouged, was
covered with perspiration, and each difficult movement, even to the