er husband
to lead her to her old room, where she threw herself across her bed in
a paroxysm of grief. "Oh, father, father, my poor, dear old father!"
she wailed, "if only you could speak to me again before you die, and
tell me that you forgive me and love me. And my brothers, so far away!
Oh, if you could be with us in this dark hour! It is so hard, so hard!"

The doctors had left. Aunt Dilsey was upstairs in attendance upon her
stricken mistress. The night wore on, and when the gray dawn was just
beginning to creep into the chamber where Hiram Gilcrest lay
unconscious and scarcely breathing, Mason Rogers and John Trabue, worn
out with their long night's vigil, stole into an adjoining room to
snatch an hour's rest. Only Abner Logan and William Bledsoe were left
in attendance upon the dying man. Presently he opened his eyes and
fixed his gaze on Abner.

"Do you know me, Mr. Gilcrest?" asked Logan, tenderly touching the
shrunken, parched hands.

"Water! water!" was the reply; "for God's sake give me water! Have
mercy, and let me have one drop before I die!"

"You shall have it, sir," said Abner, his eyes filling. Then, to a
negro boy who was just entering the room, he cried, "Run quickly to the
spring-house, and fetch a bucket of water."

"Are you not rash, Logan?" whispered Bledsoe. "You know the doctors
have all along forbidden that."

"But they have pronounced him dying; in any case the water can make no
difference, and I can not resist his plea any longer."

The water was brought, and Abner gave the sick man one sip, which was
all he would take. To his fever-parched palate the water tasted a vile
draught; and he turned from it in loathing and despair. With a tiny mop
Logan then moistened the parched mouth with a solution of slippery elm.
Presently the moan for water was again uttered, and now the fevered
palate at last began to feel its coolness. With unnatural strength he
seized the gourd, and drained its contents. "Bless you, my boy!" he
exclaimed faintly; then fell back on his pillow exhausted, and dropped
immediately into a deep sleep.

"He's gone!" exclaimed Bledsoe, as he saw the perspiration gathering
upon his brow. "He will never wake from this stupor," and again the
sorrowing family were summoned. The solemnity of death reigned in the
chamber, where the watchers restrained their weeping, and waited in
awe-struck silence the approach of man's last grim foe.

"He may live," Abner said at last as the