she would not get well. In all his life before no change had ever happened swiftly. People, as he knew them, grew old, grew weak, grew silly-and then they died. A miracle would not have astonished him more than the fact that his wife had died short off in this way.

For some occult reason connected with his general amazement he disliked going to bed. He had only to lie down and put out the rush-light, to feel more wide awake than at any moment during the day. The darkness made him uncomfortable, yet he would not for anything have burnt a rush-light while he was in bed; it was against his instincts of economy. So he sat up for the sake of the society of the oil-lamp, and dozed uneasily on a wooden chair. In his dim, confused way he wondered at the irrational customs of mankind. Often and often, on a New Year's Eve, had he been driven out to dance and make merry when he would just as lief have stayed by his own hearthside. Now, when he would gladly have gone anywhere for the sake of seeing a human face, not one of his neighbours but would have been shocked to see him.

Before the fire lay a cat that was neither tawny nor black, with a rusty mark on her forehead. She belonged to his wife. What business had she to go on living when her mistress was dead? He was not by nature social, but he would have given something for the company of one of his own race that night. It was lonely and dark in the mill.

Hark! What was that?

The wind making sounds like a voice.

Nonsense! He was dreaming. The wind, at any rate, could not say, 'Open the door.' The voice did.

On the night in question, however, there was no wind-the sails hung slack. The rain poured down straight and steadily. The very air seemed to be rotten with damp. As a rule, at this time of year the canals were frozen, and if anything fell it was snow; but the season was warmer than usual. The canals were full-another drop would make them brim overand still the rain went on.

In every mill but one bright lights were shining in the windows. The sound of fiddles shrieked from within, loud laughter echoed, and the thud of feet dancing heavily, though with a right good will. They were dancing and drinking the Old Year out, as the saying is.

In one alone there was no light except the smoky glimmer of an oil-lamp with an uneven wick, no sound but the sighing and yawning of the master of the mill as he sat by the fire, and now and then the wail of a very young child from the room above. His wife had died a week before.

He had never been very fond of her. He enjoyed an odd sense of liberty now that she was gone, yet he missed her, as one misses a familiar annoyance, and he had not got over the bewilderment of the sudden exchange of that stout, bustling, loud-voiced presence for the tiny creature that could not speak. Quickly, unexpectedly, before he knew where he was, a new thing had come to live in his house. He was not an imaginative man; he had made no preparation beforehand. Still less was he prepared for the departure of all that went that same day. His wife was one of those persons whose tiresomeness seems to be a guarantee of long life. It had by no means occurred to him that

she would not get well. In all his life before no change had ever happened swiftly. People, as he knew them, grew old, grew weak, grew silly-and then they died. A miracle would not have astonished him more than the fact that his wife had died short off in this way.

For some occult reason connected with his general amazement he disliked going to bed. He had only to lie down and put out the rush-light, to feel more wide awake than at any moment during the day. The darkness made him uncomfortable, yet he would not for anything have burnt a rush-light while he was in bed; it was against his instincts of economy. So he sat up for the sake of the society of the oil-lamp, and dozed uneasily on a wooden chair. In his dim, confused way he wondered at the irrational customs of mankind. Often and often, on a New Year's Eve, had he been driven out to dance and make merry when he would just as lief have stayed by his own hearthside. Now, when he would gladly have gone anywhere for the sake of seeing a human face, not one of his neighbours but would have been shocked to see him.

Before the fire lay a cat that was neither tawny nor black, with a rusty mark on her forehead. She belonged to his wife. What business had she to go on living when her mistress was dead? He was not by nature social, but he would have given something for the company of one of his own race that night. It was lonely and dark in the mill.

Hark! What was that?

The wind making sounds like a voice.

Nonsense! He was dreaming. The wind, at any rate, could not say, 'Open the door.' The voice did.

It was the strangest voice that he had ever heard, for

it was high and low both at once.

Open! open!' it cried again, still with the same double sound. It was human-there was no mistake about that.

He went quickly and unbarred the door. A dark figure, wrapped in a riding-cloak, from which the rain was streaming, stood outside. As he looked, a part detached itself, and he saw that there were two figures.

One moved aside to let the other pass first, but the taller and stouter seized the arm of the younger and more slightly built, and both crossed the threshold at the same moment.

The miller was somewhat taken aback. Who were they?

Gentlemen,' said he, if this be a frolic, you have come to the wrong house.'

'Frolic or no frolic, right house or wrong, here I intend to stay,' said the taller of the two.

The younger looked up appealingly; he was not much more than a boy. They seemed to be brothers, the miller thought, as they stepped within the circle of the glimmering oil-lamp. The next moment he changed his mind. No two men could be more unlike. About one thing, however, he felt certain-he did not want either of them under his roof. He was not fond of novelty; he had had more of it than he liked during the last few days. These two men were as different from any men that he had ever seen as his wife dead was different from his wife living. He lost no time in asking the question that one man puts to another when he wishes to make an enemy of him:

'Can you pay?'

Thereupon the elder man asked a question that has not always proved conducive to amicable relations either:

'Of what faith are you?'

As good a Christian as other men, I hope,' returned the miller.

'I thought you were a Jew.'

The miller said nothing. Irony was a dead language to him-less, indeed: for had the stranger spoken Hebrew he would have known that he did not understand, whereas now he took the observation as a simple statement of fact.

'If anything could make all men brothers, such a night as this should do so,' said the younger man, shivering. 'I would not turn a dog from the door.'

Nor would the miller have done so, for the matter of that. He shrugged his shoulders.

'Dog yourself!' cried the older man. 'Dog in the manger! We want neither food nor drink. We ask not so much as a crust. We do not even desire a bed. All that we would have is, leave to sit by your fireside until the day dawns. We can pay, however.'

With a sudden violent action that took the miller by surprise, he tore out of his waistcoat pocket, for which it was too big, a snuff-box of dull black horn, and flung it on the table. His hands were large and strong.

'We can give more than that,' said the younger man. He detached from his watch-chain a little key of silver, polished until it shone like a moonbeam between his thin white fingers.

Which will you have? The snuff-box will repay you at once, the key not till you find the lock that it