At length came the climax of the disease; and during a long and fearful night, Ida Mara knelt by the bedside of her benefactor, pouring forth low murmured prayers in her own tongue to the great Physician who alone can cure. The old man was no longer sensible to anything that was said, and though he talked continually, it was but with the mutterings of delirium, while his eye ranged coldly round the chamber, and seemed to see strange sights. Often Ida Mara held his hand in hers, and often put her small fingers on the pulse, till at length, towards morning, she ran down to Lakyn, who had left the room about half an hour, and said, "He must have wine!" "What, girl," cried the old housekeeper, "in the plague?" "Ay," said Ida Mara, "he must have wine!--The change has come on, his pulse is low and faint, if he have not wine now, he will be dead ere six hours be over. Little, and that cautiously, must be given; but he must have it, if you would save him." Dame Cicely looked at the old servant, and the old servant at her; but the girl spoke in a tone of authority, and Lakyn answered, "I had better give it her; wine is a good thing at all times, and if that wont save him I fear nothing will.--What shall it be, my dear,--sack?" "No, no," cried the girl, "no fiery wine; neither sack nor Burgundy." "Good soft wine of Bordeaux," replied the old man; "I will fetch it in a minute." "Why, where learned you all this leechcraft?" asked Dame Cicely, while he ran down into the cellar. "In part from the bad man from whom my benefactor delivered me," answered Ida Mara; "but it was of the plague my mother died; and a good and great mediciner of my native town afterwards told me, what we should have done to save her.--Oh, here is the wine. Now give me one of those spoons--that one, that one." "What matters it, girl?" said the old housekeeper, reaching the spoon to gratify her. "Do you not see," said Ida Mara, "this has got the image of St. Luke, the good physician, upon it?" and while the old housekeeper called her a poor benighted papist, the girl hastened back to the bedside of the old knight, and from time to time moistened his lips with the wine. Just as the day dawned fully in the sky, Sir Harry West closed his eyes, and fell into a gentle sleep, and when the housekeeper stole in, about an hour after, she found him still in the same, while Ida Mara, kneeling by his bedside, and utterly exhausted by long watching, had suffered her fair head to droop forward on the bed clothes, and was buried in slumber also.