sent
for before I was summoned back to the bedroom. He was dispatched to
Edinburgh for the second time, with a written message from Dr. Jerome
to his head servant, saying that there was no chance of his returning to
the city and to his patients for some hours to come. Some of us thought
this looked badly for Mrs. Macallan. Others said it might mean that the
doctor had hopes of saving her, but expected to be a long time in doing
it.

"At last I was sent for. On my presenting myself in the bedroom, Doctor
Jerome went out to speak to Mr. Macallan, leaving Mr. Gale along with
me. From that time as long as the poor lady lived I was never left alone
with her. One of the two doctors was always in her room. Refreshments
were prepared for them; but still they took it in turns to eat their
meal, one relieving the other at the bedside. If they had administered
remedies to their patient, I should not have been surprised by this
proceeding. But they were at the end of their remedies; their only
business the seemed to be to keep watch. I was puzzled to account for
this. Keeping watch was the nurse's business. I thought the conduct of
the doctors very strange.

"By the time that the lamp was lighted in the sick-room I could see
that the end was near. Excepting an occasional feeling of cramp in her
legs, she seemed to suffer less. But her eyes looked sunk in her head;
her skin was cold and clammy; her lips had turned to a bluish paleness.
Nothing roused her now--excepting the last attempt made by her
husband to see her. He came in with Doctor Jerome, looking like a man
terror-struck. She was past speaking; but the moment she saw him she
feebly made signs and sounds which showed that she was just as resolved
as ever not to let him come near her. He was so overwhelmed that Mr.
Gale was obliged to help him out of the room. No other person was
allowed to see the patient. Mr. Dexter and Mrs. Beauly made their
inquiries outside the door, and were not invited in. As the evening drew
on the doctors sat on either side of the bed, silently watching her,
silently waiting for her death.

"Toward eight o'clock she seemed to have lost the use of her hands and
arms: they lay helpless outside the bed-clothes. A little later she
sank into a sort of dull sleep. Little by little the sound of her heavy
breathing grew fainter. At twenty minutes past nine Doctor Jerome told
me to bring the lamp to the bedside. He looked at her, and put his hand
on her h