‘He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’ Those words were continually in his mind. For that one widow--blessed and chosen above all other afflicted women--God upon earth worked one of His greatest miracles. Thrice only in His earthly pilgrimage did He exercise that ineffable power--and on this occasion it seemed exercised on the impulse of the moment. God’s human heart had been touched by this entirely human grief. He did not say to the widow--as His servants now say--‘Rejoice, for your son is in heaven.’ He gave her back her son upon earth. Cyril was heavy at heart, for he had seen every cause for fear in Emmanuel Joyce’s condition. ‘If it were my life, now, that was in jeopardy, it would matter very little,’ he said to himself. ‘Who is there to be sorry for me? My cousin Kenrick would be grieved, perhaps, in a mild degree, to hear of my death; but it would make very little difference in his life. This poor woman’s existence will be desolate if she loses her son. There will be nothing left her. Hard to break the chain of love when poverty and loneliness have made each link so strong.’ The twilight was closing in when Cyril went back to the room where Emmanuel Joyce was lying, in an agony that looked like the throes of death. The widow’s ashen face indicated a knowledge of her son’s peril. She tried to speak, but could not. She could only hold out her cold tremulous hand to the human friend of whose pity she felt assured, and look at him with wild despairing eyes. He pressed her hand gently, and sat down by the bedside to watch the struggle, while he waited for the doctor’s coming. ‘You have done everything?’ he inquired. ‘Yes, I am sure of that.’ The room had a stifling odour of laudanum and brandy. The sick man’s pinched and livid face, hollow sunken eye sand brow bedewed with death-like dampness made Cyril apprehend the worst. The hands grasping the coverlet were shrunken and wrinkled, the skin shrivelled like a washerwoman’s after her day’s labour. The oppressed respiration, the cold breath which chilled the curate’s cheek as he bent over his dying friend, alike inspired fear. Yet the brain remained unclouded all the while, and the hollow voice hoarsely whispered grateful acknowledgment of Cyril’s kindness. Never had Emmanuel Joyce been calmer in mind than in this dark hour. He waited with resignation for recovery or death. It was more than an hour before the parish doctor appeared. ‘There are so many cases,’ he said, apologetically. And then he looked at the patient with a calm business-like air that tortured the mother’s heart. He felt the pulse, put his hard hand upon the clammy brow. ‘He’s very bad to-night.’ ‘Worse than he was this morning?’ asked the widow, hoarsely. ‘Ever so much worse.’ ‘And you said this morning that he was in danger.’