"I shall never forgive myself," cried Tim at last, leaping from his chair, "never! I lay down beside her for a bit that night, with her cheek upon my hand, and dropped off; but she moaned in her sleep, and it woke me directly. I gave her some drink, when, `Please take me,' she whispered, and her little voice sounded, oh! so cracked, and harsh, and strange. So I took her in my arms--so light she was!--and then, having been watching night after night, I felt drowsy again. I propped myself with my back to the wall in the corner of the board, with that little hand nestled, as it had been scores of times, close against my breast. Her little arms were round me, and then I rocked her to and fro gently till she began to moan again quite softly, as she had often done of late in her sleep; and then, instead of keeping awake, I dropped off again, and slept for hours, till the light came peeping in through the sides of the blinds. "Pale and cold and scaring looked the light that morning; and as I woke, cramped, tired, and stiff, a horrible thought flashed through me, tearing me so that for a long time I dared not move nor look down. I seemed to have known all that had taken place, and to have felt it all, just as if I had been awake all night. I didn't dream it, you know, ma'am, so I can't explain myself; but I knew well enough that while I had slept, the something that had been drawing the poor darling away for so long had come at last and borne her off. "I knew it all well enough in an instant of time--that what I held so tightly in my arms as I sat there was not little Pine, but only her shape, and fast growing colder, colder, and colder--oh! so fast. And yet I could not move. "There was no moaning now--no sigh--no rattling in her poor little chest--no twitching restless moving of her poor little hands--no starting wildly from a half sleep to kiss me--but one terrible stillness; and I'd have given all I had only to have heard once more the dreadful painful cough that was gone now for ever. "I shall never forgive myself," cried Tim, with a fresh burst of emotion. "Only to think of it!--only to think that I could not keep awake to watch over her to the last!" and Tim buried his face once more in his hands. Poor weary watcher that he was! he could not see the loving hand that had pressed down his burning eyelids, but accused himself angrily--the watcher alone through weary night after weary night--the watcher who had fought with all-conquering sleep till it could be resisted no more, and he was spared the sight of the last faint struggle!