She came and knelt down by his bed and his eyes rested lovingly upon her. His first solicitude was for her—her care, her happiness. All the love of three decades shone in his face as he feebly put out his hands and covered her own with his. He knew that he was dying, she only half apprehended it. But even in such a trial she kept herself up most bravely, lifting her tear-stained face to Dr. Rixey’s and exclaiming: “I know that you will save him. I cannot let him go. The country cannot spare him.” The President’s strength did not last long. Unconsciousness returned to him, and they led Mrs. McKinley away. When she was without the room Mr. Milburn told her that the President could hardly live until morning. Herbert P. Bissell came to her side as she wavered, and Dr. Wasdin hurried from the President’s chamber and administered a restorative. Little by little Mrs. McKinley gained new strength, and in half an hour was in full control of herself. Several ladies sat beside her, and to one of these she turned and whispered: “I will be strong for his sake.” An invalid herself, racked for twenty years with pain, almost helpless at times, since the years in which her children passed from her, the wife and sweetheart of the dying President conquered herself. And so the heavy hours hurried away. Midnight had come, and gone. The dawn was lingering far in the east, and not even the edge of the world glowed with the promise of day. It had rained on Friday, and a storm had raged which will long be remembered by those who were called abroad in the troubled city. As at the close of Napoleon’s life the elements warred tumultuously, so on the last day of this gentler ruler, the winds and the clouds filled the earth with tears and the sounds of weeping. They did not know, but his physicians were helpless from the start. The demon who had struck so surely, might well make mockery of them. Six days of pain, six days of agony, six days of hovering at the slippery brink of death—and on the seventh he was at rest.