The patients that Aunt Jane assumed in this peremptory fashion always recovered. Perhaps they would have recovered in any case. This is one of the things that no one knows. It may be noted, however, in passing, that the patients themselves as they came into the new day, holding fast to Aunt Jane's hand, cherished a belief that had it not been for that firm, plump hand, the new day would not have dawned for them.... They had no strength and no will of their own. But through the cold and the darkness, something held them; and when the spirit came creeping back with the morning, the first thing that their eyes rested on was Aunt Jane's face. The woman's eyes opened suddenly. They looked for a moment, dull and unseeing, into Aunt Jane's. Then they fell shut. Aunt Jane's fingers noted the pulse and passed once or twice across the high, fretted brow. Slowly a look of sleep passed over the face and the strained lines relaxed. Aunt Jane, watching it, gave a nod of satisfaction. Out in the orchard the robin sang his twilight song, slow and cool and liquid, with long pauses between, and the dusk crept into the white room, touching it. Aunt Jane sat passive, waiting, the eyes under her white cap glowing with a still, deep look. All the threads of life and death in the hospital gathered up and centred in the quiet figure sitting there. Not a pulse in the great building beat, or flickered and went out, that Aunt Jane did not know it. But she sat waiting while the twilight deepened, a look of restfulness in her big face. Now and then she crooned to herself, half humming the lines of some hymn and falling silent again, watching the sleeper's breath. The night nurse paused outside the door, and a little rush of gaslight flickered in. Aunt Jane rose and closed the door and shifted a screen noiselessly to the foot of the bed. The long night had settled down for its sleep. And Edith Dalton's soul was keeping watch with death. Slowly it sank back into the grim hold ... only a spark left, with Aunt Jane keeping guard over it.... So the night passed and the day, and another night and another day ... and the third day dawned. Edith Dalton would have said, as the spark glowed higher and blazed a little and lighted her soul, and her eyes rested on Aunt Jane's face, that the figure sitting there had not left her side for three days. Down through the deepest waters, where death lulled her and heaven waited, she had felt a touch on her soul, holding her, drawing her steadily back to life; and now she opened her eyes and they rested on Aunt Jane's face and smiled a little. Then the lids fluttered together again and sleep came to the face, natural and sweet.