lie still in bed and rest. He was
never one to be very obedient. A little later Mrs. Allen and I, in the
sitting-room, heard some one walking softly outside on the veranda. We
went out there, and he was marching up and down in his dressing-gown as
unconcerned as if he were not an invalid at all. He hadn't felt sleepy,
he said, and thought a little exercise would do him good. Perhaps it
did, for he slept soundly that night--a great blessing.

Mr. Allen had chartered a special tug to come to Bay House landing in the
morning and take him to the ship. He was carried in a little hand-chair
to the tug, and all the way out he seemed light-spirited, anything but an
invalid: The sailors carried him again in the chair to his state-room,
and he bade those dear Bermuda friends good-by, and we sailed away.

As long as I remember anything I shall remember the forty-eight hours of
that homeward voyage. It was a brief two days as time is measured; but
as time is lived it has taken its place among those unmeasured periods by
the side of which even years do not count.

At first he seemed quite his natural self, and asked for a catalogue of
the ship's library, and selected some memoirs of the Countess of Cardigan
for his reading. He asked also for the second volume of Carlyle's French
Revolution, which he had with him. But we ran immediately into the more
humid, more oppressive air of the Gulf Stream, and his breathing became
at first difficult, then next to impossible. There were two large
port-holes, which I opened; but presently he suggested that it would be
better outside. It was only a step to the main-deck, and no passengers
were there. I had a steamer-chair brought, and with Claude supported him
to it and bundled him with rugs; but it had grown damp and chilly, and
his breathing did not improve. It seemed to me that the end might come
at any moment, and this thought was in his mind, too, for once in the
effort for breath he managed to say:

"I am going--I shall be gone in a moment."

Breath came; but I realized then that even his cabin was better than
this. I steadied him back to his berth and shut out most of that deadly
dampness. He asked for the "hypnotic 'injunction" (for his humor never
left him), and though it was not yet the hour prescribed I could not deny
it. It was impossible for him to lie down, even to recline, without
great distress. The opiate made him drowsy, and he longed for the relief
of sleep; but when it se