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