me is, will be on guard in the room next to this, ready to
answer your lightest call. Indeed, you may open the door between the two
rooms, but on no account speak or move unless absolutely necessary. This
heavy sleep will grow lighter _perhaps_. Now, I want your fixed
attention." Then followed very close and careful directions--what to do,
and, above all, what _not_ to do.

"Doctor, tell me one word more," said Theodore, quivering with
suppressed emotion. "How do _you_ think it will end?"

"I have hardly the faintest atom of hope," answered this honest, earnest
man. "If, as I said, after midnight this sleep grows heavier, and you
fail to catch the regular breathing, you may call the family. I think no
human sound will disturb him after that; but if, on the contrary, the
breathing grows steadier, and occasionally he moves a little, then I
want you fairly to hold your breath, and then we may begin to hope,
provided nothing shall occur to startle him; but I will be in by twelve
or a little after."

The doctor went away with lightest tread, and Theodore opened the door
of communication with the next room, met the kind, sympathetic eyes of
Jim resting on him, returned his grave, silent bow, and felt sustained
by his presence, then went back to his silent, solemn work. Close by the
bedside, and thus, his head resting on one hand, his eyes fixed on the
sleepless face, his heart going up to God in such wordless agony of
entreaty as he had never felt before, passed the long, long hours. "The
eyes of the Lord are in every place." How this watcher blessed God for
that promise now! His, then, were not the only watcher's eyes bent on
that white face; but He who knew the end from the beginning--aye, who
held both beginning and end in the hollow of his hand, was watching too.
More than that, the loving Redeemer, who had shed his blood for this
poor man's soul, who loved it to-night with a love passing all human
knowledge, was the other watcher. So Theodore waited and prayed, and the
burden of his prayer was, "Lord, save him." Ten, eleven, twelve
o'clock, still that solemn silence, still that wordless prayer. No
doctor yet "I would not leave you if it were not absolute necessity," he
had said. "Life or death in another family, with more for human
knowledge to do than there is here, takes me away; but I will be back as
soon after twelve as possible." Would he _never_ come? It was ten
minutes after twelve now, still no change--or, was