From that day Godwin refused to see any physician, prescribing for himself from a private medicine-chest; and from that day he grew rapidly worse and worse. The olden terrors of Sybilla returned upon her as her husband sank so palpably; she slackened her hand, withheld it altogether in a paroxysm of mortal dread which passed very well for conjugal affection, but still from that day he grew rapidly worse and worse. Till in the noon of a certain night, while she was vainly endeavoring to sleep, in an adjoining chamber, the husband called hurriedly to the wife. The wife then rose, hastened to the door in nervous stupor, and stood rigidly looking in from the threshold. The calm, every-day appearance of the patient, as he sat up in his bed, restored her, however, to confidence; and, loosening her clenched hands, she advanced to the foot of the bed. “Come nearer, Sybilla,” said Godwin. There was something new in the expression of his voice, and she went to his side like one walking on a lake. The sick man placed one arm round her. “My wife,” he said, and the words fell whispering from his lips, soft as the sound of falling leaves. “My wife, this fever is coming to an end.” Sybilla shook from head to foot. “Place your finger on this place,” he said. She touched his wrist, and thought she recognized the difference between a pulse that beats with blood and a pulse that beats with poison. Again Sybilla shook from head to foot. “And now do look into my eyes, Sybilla”--still he spoke with the same soft voice--“I think they are growing dim.” She glanced upward for the first time; and his eyes were not dim at all. They were blazing at her; and before she could withdraw her glance he uttered, “Sybilla, I shall be dead in an hour!” and so fixed her eyes upon his face. If life was of any value to her, it was fortunate for Sybilla at that moment that her heart had grown accustomed to tumult; otherwise it must have burst. As it was, she gradually withdrew her eyes from Godwin’s, and threw herself upon the bed in a passion of tears. And as she lay, burying her head in the clothing, a change passed over her husband’s countenance. The fires were quenched in his eyes, and now they were really dim--with some strange commingling of pity, and melancholy, and agony, and even of yearning love, all in one tear. It was not, however, a time of abiding, and it, too, passed away.