Helen had not left his room, either day or night. Leaning upon one arm on the edge of the narrow bed, she watched for the lifting of an eyelid, for the motion of a hand, for the ebbing or the rising of a breath. Sometimes he knew her, and seemed to try to say to her how comforting it was to him to have her there, in the dreary old rooms, where he had dreamed of her sumptuous presence; where they meant to begin their life and love together. But he could not talk. She found herself already anticipating the habit of those whom the eternal silence bereaves, recalling every precious phrase that his lips had uttered in those last days; she repeated to herself the words which he had said to her on Sunday morning,-- “Nothing _can_ harm us now, for you are mine, and I am yours, and this is forever.” As the seventh day broke he grew perceptibly stronger. Helen yielded to her father’s entreaties, and for a moment absented herself from the sick-room--for she was greatly overworn,--to drink a breath of morning air. She sat down on the step in the front door of the cottage. She noticed the larkspur in the garden, blue and tall; bees were humming through it; the sound of the tide came up loudly; Jane Granite came and offered her something, she could not have said what; Helen tried to drink it, but pushed the cup away, and went hurriedly upstairs again. A cot had now been moved in for her beside Bayard’s narrow bed. She sat down on the edge of it, between her father and her husband. The Professor stirred to step softly out. “Dear Professor!” said Bayard suddenly. He looked at the Christ on the wall, and smiled. “We meant--the same thing--after all,” he whispered. Then he put his hand in his wife’s, and slept. It came on to be the evening of the eighth day. He had grown stronger all the day, but he suffered much. “Folks are keepin’ of him back by their prayers,” said the religious, old fisherman, who leaned every day upon the garden fence. “He can’t pass.” But Job Slip and Captain Hap, who sat upon the doorsteps, listening from dawn to dark for any sign from Bayard’s room, said nothing at all. It came to be evening, and the tide had risen with the wind. The sea called all night long. Helen sat alone with her husband. He did not wander that night, but watched her face whenever he was not asleep. “Kiss me, Helen,” he sighed at midnight. She stooped and kissed him, but her lips took the air from him, and he struggled for it. “You poor, poor girl!” he said. The wind went down, and the tide went out. The dawn came with the ebb. Bayard fell into a sleep so gentle that Helen’s heart leaped with hope. She stole out into the study. Captain Hap was there; his shoes were off; he stepped without noise. The sunrise made a rose-light in the rooms. “It is real sleep,” breathed Helen. “Don’t wake him, Captain.”