ours of candle-light,
watching the unconscious half-closed eyes, wiping the perspiration from
the brow and cheeks, and keeping her left hand on the cold unanswering
right hand that lay beside her on the bed-clothes. She was almost as pale
as her dying husband, and there were dark lines under her eyes, for this
was the third night since she had taken off her clothes; but the eager
straining gaze of her dark eyes, and the acute sensibility that lay in
every line about her mouth, made a strange contrast with the blank
unconsciousness and emaciated animalism of the face she was watching.

There was profound stillness in the house. She heard no sound but her
husband's breathing and the ticking of the watch on the mantelpiece. The
candle, placed high up, shed a soft light down on the one object she
cared to see. There was a smell of brandy in the room; it was given to
her husband from time to time; but this smell, which at first had
produced in her a faint shuddering sensation, was now becoming
indifferent to her: she did not even perceive it; she was too unconscious
of herself to feel either temptations or accusations. She only felt that
the husband of her youth was dying; far, far out of her reach, as if she
were standing helpless on the shore, while he was sinking in the black
storm-waves; she only yearned for one moment in which she might satisfy
the deep forgiving pity of her soul by one look of love, one word of
tenderness.

Her sensations and thoughts were so persistent that she could not measure
the hours, and it was a surprise to her when the nurse put out the
candle, and let in the faint morning light. Mrs. Raynor, anxious about
Janet, was already up, and now brought in some fresh coffee for her; and
Mr. Pilgrim having awaked, had hurried on his clothes, and was coming in
to see how Dempster was.

This change from candle-light to morning, this recommencement of the same
round of things that had happened yesterday, was a discouragement rather
than a relief to Janet. She was more conscious of her chill weariness:
the new light thrown on her husband's face seemed to reveal the still
work that death had been doing through the night; she felt her last
lingering hope that he would ever know her again forsake her.

But now, Mr. Pilgrim, having felt the pulse, was putting some brandy in a
tea-spoon between Dempster's lips; the brandy went down, and his
breathing became freer. Janet noticed the change, and her heart beat