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62 is fond of me," she opened her eyes with a start. "Is the door shut?" she said. "Keep her out of the room."

"She is not here," he answered, "and the door is closed."

The sight of his face seemed to help her to recover herself.

"What am I saying?" she said. "I have not told you who I am."

"No," he replied, "not yet."

"My name was Janet Murdoch," she said. "I was your father's cousin. Once he was very fond of me."

She drew from under her pillow a few old letters.

"Look at them," she said; "he wrote them."

But he only glanced at the superscription and laid them down again.

"I did not know," she panted, "that he was dead. I hoped he would be here. I knew that he must have lived a quiet life. I always thought of him as living here in the old way."

"He was away from here for thirty years," said Murdoch. "He only came back to die."

"He!" she said, "I never thought of that. It—seems very strange. I could not imagine his going from place to place—or living a busy life—or suffering much. He was so simple and so quiet."

"I thought of him," she went on, "because he was a good man—a good man—and there was no one else in the world. As the end came I grew restless—I wanted to—to try——"

But there her eyes closed and she forgot herself again.

"What was it you wanted to try to do?" he asked gently.

She roused herself, as before, with a start.