Mrs. McKinley did not take her usual drive. She saw the President once before night, and then only for a moment. No words passed between them. The physicians led her to the bedside of her husband, and after she had looked at him for a moment they led her away. While Mrs. McKinley was told that the President was not so well the physicians deemed it best not to attempt to explain to her fully the nature of the complications which had arisen or the real gravity of his condition. As fast as steam could bring them the President’s secretaries, the members of his family and the physicians who had left convinced that the President would recover, were whirled back to Buffalo. They went at once to the house in which he was lying, and the information which they obtained there was of a nature to heighten rather than to relieve their fears. All night the doctors worked to keep the President alive. The day broke with a gloomy sky and a pouring rain, broken by frequent bursts of gusty downpours. It seemed as though nature was sympathizing with the gloom which surrounded the ivy-clad house about which the sentries were steadily marching. The 2 o’clock bulletin, issued at 2:30, swung the pendulum away over on the side of confidence. It stated that the President had more than held his own since morning, and that his condition justified the expectation of further improvement. It added: “He is better than at this time yesterday.” Faces up and down the street brightened. Telegraph messenger boys, in their youthful spirits, restrained all the day by the gloom around the Milburn house, whooped as they ran and nobody reproved. The sun shone again. But the news was too good to last. Secretary Cortelyou walked across the street to the press and telegraph tents and explained that the sentence. “He is better than at this time yesterday,” should be stricken out. Then the sky was black again. The bravery of Mrs. McKinley in this last moment was only paralleled by the heroism with which the President himself, murmuring the words of “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” turned his face away from all so dear to him in life, and passed into the last and eternal sleep. All through the struggle of Friday when the erratic heart of the President leaped and then failed, Mrs. McKinley’s courage had been at the highest point. The beautiful womanhood within her, the memories of thirty years of perfect married life, the recollections of the tender devotions of the dying President, rose and gave her the strength needed to face the worst. She remained in her apartments surrounded by friends, anxious to be by the President’s side, but obedient to Dr. Rixey’s wishes that she should not come until she was called. Oxygen had been given the President, and under its influence he had slightly revived. He told Dr. Rixey that he realized he was about to die, and he asked for Mrs. McKinley.