The colonel was very sleepy and a little inclined to be unreasonable, and, after Edith had gone to her mother, he lay awake for a long time listening to the sound of voices in Mrs. Barrett’s room, the shutting of doors, the footsteps in the hall, and the general commotion, until he began to wonder if for Edith’s sake he ought not to get up and see what was the matter. Ere long, however, he heard Mrs. Tiffe say to one of the maids, as she passed his door, that it was nothing but _cramps_ and a good deal of _hypo_; and thus reassured he composed himself to sleep, and did not waken, when, in the gray of the early morning, Edith crept shivering to his side. CHAPTER L. THE STORM GATHERING. It was more than the _cramps_ and the _hypo_ which ailed Mrs. Barrett, though at first it seemed much like both, and after seeing her fall away to sleep, Edith went to her own room without a thought of danger. But later in the morning, when she stood again by her mother’s bedside, and saw how pinched her features were, and how old and worn she looked without her teeth and puffs of hair, and how weak and helpless she seemed, she began to feel some alarm and sent for the physician at once. It was a severe cold, the doctor said, and there was no danger to be apprehended; but Mrs. Barrett thought differently. She had a settled conviction that the sickness coming on so fast was her last. She had only come to America to die, and Edith would not long be troubled with her, she said, in reproachful tones, which she meant should make her daughter sorry that she had not been more pleased to see her. And Edith was sorry, and made every possible amends by nursing her herself, and staying constantly with her. And yet with all the care Mrs. Barrett grew worse, and every succeeding day found her weaker than the preceding one had left her. She did not seem to have any vitality or rallying force, and without any real disease sank so fast that within two weeks after her arrival in Hampstead, she came to the point where she looked death in the face and knew he was waiting for her.