walked very swiftly up to us, looked
first into her face then into mine; then felt her pulse, and then mine,
and then turning to me, said,--

"It will have to be you." We looked at him in sudden terror. The tears
were rolling down his wrinkled cheeks.

"What is it, William?" gasped Aunt Ann.

"It will have to be you," he went on, looking me in the face, and taking
no notice of her question; "your pulse can be trusted. There has been a
change. When Annie wakes out of this sleep she will know you. It may be in
two hours, and it may not be for six. But if in that first moment she is
alarmed, or agitated in any way, she will die."

"O William, let me stay. I will be calm," moaned my poor aunt.

Then I observed, for the first time, that she had called him "William."
And then, for the first and last time, I heard Dr. Fearing call my Aunt
Ann "darling," and I remembered in that instant that it had been said once
in my hearing, that it was because of his love for Mrs. Henry Ware that
Dr. William Fearing had lived and would die a lonely man.

"Darling," he said, and put one hand on her shoulder, "you would kill your
child. I forbid you to cross the threshold of that room till I come back.
You will thank me to-morrow. Can you not trust me, Ann?" and he looked
down from his full height, this brave old man, into the face of the woman
he had loved, with a look like the look of one who dies to save another.
It was but for one second, and then he was again the physician, and
turning to me, went on, "I have another patient to whom I must instantly
go, and whom I may not be able to leave for hours. You can do all that I
would do,--I believe,"--then he felt my pulse again, and nodding his head
with a sort of grim professional satisfaction, which no amount of emotion
could wholly divert from its delight in the steady nerves and undisturbed
currents of a healthy body,--resumed, "You have but one thing to do: when
she wakes, look perfectly composed; if she speaks, answer her in a
perfectly natural voice; give her two drops of this medicine, and tell her
to go to sleep again. If you do this, she will fall asleep at once. If
you show the least agitation, she may die,--probably will!"--and Dr.
Fearing was gone.

My aunt sat silently weeping. I kissed her without speaking, and went back
to my chair by Annie's bed. I dropped the two drops of medicine into a
spoon, and propped the spoon carefully on a little silver tray, so that I
could re