f Alton opens his eyes, let him see you, and you
will give him the draught yonder in an hour from now. It is of vital
importance that he should take it. If he does not, tap on the door for
me."

Alice Deringham bent her head again, and, when the doctor went out with
Seaforth, sat down beside the bed. Her fatigue had gone from her, and
though she had never done such things before, she gently drew the
coverings higher about the man, and once ventured to raise his head a
trifle and smooth down the pillow. Alton opened his eyes, and for a
moment they seemed to follow her, but the gleam of understanding went
out of them when she sat down again. Then he lay very still, and there
was an oppressive quietness through which she could hear the crackle of
the stove and the night wind moaning about the ranch. Alton's eyes
were shut now, and the girl sat and watched him, too intent almost to
wonder at herself. This was the man she had striven to despise, and
yet she, who had never concerned herself with woman's work before,
forgot her weariness as she waited to minister to him. It was but
little help that she could offer--a gentle touch that checked a
restless movement, a wrinkle smoothed from the pillow--but it was done
with a great tenderness, for fibres in the girl's nature that had lain
silent long awoke that night and thrilled.

Now and then Alton moved a little, and once or twice he moaned. The
firewood snapped and crackled in the stove, the sigh of the pines came
up in fantastic cadence across the clearing, and so while the dark
angel stooped above the lonely ranch the night wore on.

There was, however, one man in Somasco ranch who needed sleep that
night and found it fly from him. Deringham, who had spoken with the
doctor, lay fully dressed in an adjoining room, listening to the
ticking of his watch, and for any sound that might rise from beyond the
cedar boarding where his daughter kept her vigil. He had gathered that
before the morning Alton of Somasco and Carnaby would either have laid
aside his activities for ever or be within hope of recovery, and while
Deringham dare not ask himself just then whether he desired the death
of his kinsman, the suspense was maddening. If the flame of vitality
that was flickering so feebly went out Carnaby would be his daughter's,
and the burden which almost crushed him lifted. If it burned on there
was at the best a long struggle with adversity before him, and at the
worst