All withdrew in silence except Mrs. Middleton, who, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, kept watch by the pale sufferer as she slept. She hardly realised to herself the truth of what Ellen had said; she could form but one idea, feel but one conviction--this cherished, this idolised being, was to die. Death had done its work with all she loved; she had before borne up against grief; now, for the first time, she resigned herself; out of the deep she called upon God, and in the horror, in the pity, in the unconquerable tenderness which vaguely filled her bewildered soul, she learnt "to cease from man and turn to God." She dared not _think_, and so she only prayed. When Edward returned that day, he found his wife weaker than ever, but calmer still than she had yet been. She received him with a smile which pierced through his soul. The fearful truth broke slowly upon him that he _must_ lose her: that the days of trembling hope and fear, which he had gone through, since he had taken her back to his heart, must give way to that desolating certainty--to that inevitable anguish against which the feelings rebel while the understanding acquiesces. There was no secret between them now; they knew they must part; and her remaining days were spent in a long and deep farewell. She was more resigned than he was--she was nearer Heaven; she had suffered and struggled, and through much tribulation had reached the haven at last; life's last wave had carried her to the shores of eternity, and death for her bruised heart had a balm, for her weary spirit a rest, which life could never yield. She gazed upon him hour after hour, and her very soul seemed to speak out of her dying eyes; "And it seemed as the harps of the skies had rung. And the airs of Heaven played round her tongue," as she spoke of that death which had lost its sting--of that grave which had lost its victory; for in the might of her earthly love--in the ardour of her living faith, she discerned the shortness of time, the fulness of eternity; life seemed to her now but a little span, and she could say in the spirit of David, "I may not stay with thee, but thou wilt come to me."