The first glimpse that Constance had of Damaris on the bed sent all the blood back against her heart with a pang that made her feel faint. It did not seem possible that she was in time, even should her knowledge be correct. The child lay rigid as Constance's eyes fell on her; her lips and cheeks were ghastly, her long hair heightening the awful effect of her deathly colour. Frequent convulsions shook her body, her struggling breathing alone broke the stillness of the room. "She is quieter, but it is not that she is better," whispered Dame Eliza. Priscilla Alden stood ready with a spoon and glass in one hand, water in a small ewer in the other, always the efficient, sensible girl when needed. Constance accepted the glass, took from it the spoon, gave the glass back to Priscilla and poured from the dark phial into the spoon the dose of belladonna that Doctor Fuller had explained to her would be proper to use in an extreme case of danger. "How wonderful that he should have told me particularly about toadstool poisoning, yet it is because of the children," Constance's dual mind was saying to her, even while she poured the remedy and prayed with all her might for its efficacy. "Open her mouth," she said to her father, and he obeyed her. Constance poured the belladonna down Damaris's throat. Even after the first dose the child's rigor relaxed before a long time had passed. The dose was repeated; the early dusk of the grayest month closed down upon the watchers in that room. The neighbours slipped away to their own homes and duties; night fell, and Stephen Hopkins, his wife, Giles, and Constance stood around that bed, feeling no want of food, watching, watching the gradual cessation of the wracking convulsions, the relaxation of the stiffened little limbs, the fall of the strained eyelids, the quieter breathing, the changing tint of the skin as the poison loosed its grip upon the poor little heart and the blood began to course languidly, but duly, through the congested veins. "Constance, she is safe!" Stephen Hopkins ventured at last to say as Damaris turned on her side with a long, refreshing breath. Giles went quickly from the room, and Constance turned to her father with sudden weakness that made her faint. Constance swayed as she stood and her father caught her in his arms, tenderly drawing her head down on his shoulder, as great rending sobs shook her from relief and the accumulated exhaustion of hunger, physical weariness, anxiety, and grief. "Brave little lass!" Stephen Hopkins whispered, kissing her again and again. "Brave, quick-witted, loving, wise little lass o' mine!" Dame Eliza spoke never a word, but on her knees, with her head buried in the bright patch bedspread, one of Damaris's cold little hands laid across her lips, she wept as Constance had never dreamed that her stepmother could weep.