transfer the scene to that room in the hospital which
was occupied by Spike. The approaches of death, during the interval
just named, had been slow but certain. The surgeons had announced that
the wounded man could not possibly survive the coming night; and he
himself had been made sensible that his end was near. It is scarcely
necessary to add that Stephen Spike, conscious of his vigor and
strength, in command of his brig, and bent on the pursuits of worldly
gains, or of personal gratification, was a very different person from
him who now lay stretched on his pallet in the hospital of Key West, a
dying man. By the side of his bed still sat his strange nurse, less
peculiar in appearance, however, than when last seen by the reader.

Rose Budd had been ministering to the ungainly externals of Jack Tier.
She now wore a cap, thus concealing the short, gray bristles of hair,
and lending to her countenance a little of that softness which is a
requisite of female character. Some attention had also been paid to
the rest of her attire; and Jack was, altogether, less repulsive in
her exterior than when, unaided, she had attempted to resume the
proper garb of her sex. Use and association, too, had contributed a
little to revive her woman's nature, if we may so express it, and she
had begun, in particular, to feel the sort of interest in her patient
which we all come in time to entertain toward any object of our
especial care. We do not mean that Jack had absolutely ever ceased to
love her husband; strange as it may seem, such had not literally been
the case; on the contrary, her interest in him and in his welfare had
never ceased, even while she saw his vices and detested his crimes;
but all we wish to say here is, that she was getting, in addition to
the long-enduring feelings of a wife, some of the interest of a nurse.

During the whole time which had elapsed between Jack's revealing her
true character, and the moment of which we are now writing, Spike had
not once spoken to his wife. Often had she caught his eyes intently
riveted on her, when he would turn them away, as she feared, in
distaste; and once or twice he groaned deeply, more like a man who
suffered mental than bodily pain. Still the patient did not speak once
in all the time mentioned. We should be representing poor Jack as
possessing more philosophy, or less feeling, than the truth would
warrant, were we to say she was not hurt at this conduct in her
husband. On th