p again,
when the door creaked and the Virginian stood by the Doctor's side.

"Are you awake, seh?"

"What? What's that? What is it?"

"Excuse me, seh. The enemy is winning on me. I'm feeling less inward
opposition to sin."

The lamp was lighted, and I listened to some further exhortations. They
must have taken half an hour. When the Doctor was in bed again, I
thought that I heard him sigh. This upset my composure in the dark; but
I lay face downward in the pillow, and the Doctor was soon again
snoring. I envied him for a while his faculty of easy sleep. But I must
have dropped off myself; for it was the lamp in my eyes that now waked
me as he came back for the third time from the Virginian's room. Before
blowing the light out he looked at his watch, and thereupon I inquired
the hour of him.

"Three," said he.

I could not sleep any more now, and I lay watching the darkness.

"I'm afeard to be alone!" said the Virginian's voice presently in the
next room. "I'm afeard." There was a short pause, and then he shouted
very loud, "I'm losin' my desire afteh the sincere milk of the Word!"

"What? What's that? What?" The Doctor's cot gave a great crack as he
started up listening, and I put my face deep in the pillow.

"I'm afeard! I'm afeard! Sin has quit being bitter in my belly."

"Courage, my good man." The Doctor was out of bed with his lamp again,
and the door shut behind him. Between them they made it long this time.
I saw the window become gray; then the corners of the furniture grow
visible; and outside, the dry chorus of the blackbirds began to fill the
dawn. To these the sounds of chickens and impatient hoofs in the stable
were added, and some cow wandered by loudly calling for her calf. Next,
some one whistling passed near and grew distant. But although the cold
hue that I lay staring at through the window warmed and changed, the
Doctor continued working hard over his patient in the next room. Only a
word here and there was distinct; but it was plain from the Virginian's
fewer remarks that the sin in his belly was alarming him less. Yes, they
made this time long. But it proved, indeed, the last one. And though
some sort of catastrophe was bound to fall upon us, it was myself who
precipitated the thing that did happen.

Day was wholly come. I looked at my own watch, and it was six. I had
been about seven hours in my bed, and the Doctor had been about seven
hours out of his. The door opened, and he came in