support her.

Her husband rose fretfully from his chair, and took her from me. When
his eyes met mine, the look of sullen self-restraint in his countenance
was crossed, in an instant, by an expression of triumphant
malignity. He whispered to me: "If you don't change your tone by
to-morrow!"--paused--and then, without finishing the sentence, moved
away abruptly, and supported his wife to the door.

Just when her face was turned towards where I stood, as he took her out,
I thought I saw the cold, vacant eyes soften as they rested on me, and
change again tenderly to the old look of patience and sadness which I
remembered so well. Was my imagination misleading me? or had the light
of that meek spirit shone out on earth, for the last time at parting, in
token of farewell to mine? She was gone to me, gone for ever--before I
could look nearer, and know.

* * * * *

I was told, afterwards, how she died.

For the rest of that day, and throughout the night, she lay speechless,
but still alive. The next morning, the faint pulse still fluttered. As
the day wore on, the doctors applied fresh stimulants, and watched her
in astonishment; for they had predicted her death as impending every
moment, at least twelve hours before. When they spoke of this to her
husband, his behaviour was noticed as very altered and unaccountable by
every one. He sulkily refused to believe that her life was in danger; he
roughly accused anybody who spoke of her death, as wanting to fix on
him the imputation of having ill-used her, and so being the cause of her
illness; and more than this, he angrily vindicated himself to every one
about her--even to the servants--by quoting the indulgence he had shown
to her fancy for seeing me when I called, and his patience while she
was (as he termed it) wandering in her mind in trying to talk to me. The
doctors, suspecting how his uneasy conscience was accusing him, forbore
in disgust all expostulation. Except when he was in his daughter's room,
he was shunned by everybody in the house.

Just before noon, on the second day, Mrs. Sherwin rallied a little under
the stimulants administered to her, and asked to see her husband
alone. Both her words and manner gave the lie to his assertion that her
faculties were impaired--it was observed by all her attendants, that
whenever she had strength to speak, her speech never wandered in the
slightest degree. Her husband quitted her room more fretfully uneasy,