"Well, I should say you did," she sighed in mock heroism, "why, you are the crossest, and crankiest and sulkiest patient it was ever a woman's misfortune to nurse. Come now--I am going to dose you with this beef tea, just for refusing me awhile ago." Her quick blustering way always amused and aroused him, and he yielded more easily to her than to the others, but her hand was somewhat nervous to-day as she administered the nourishing liquid. She, too, saw the ominous shadows of a serious change in the pale, wasted face. "Why, you are as feeble almost as myself!" he tried to exclaim, "see how your hand shakes." "It is that knitting," she answered distractedly, "but I must finish those silk stockings for Honor's New Year's gift, so I hurry them up while I can sit in here alone." "For Honor, eh!" he said so pathetically, that the words moved her. "I believe you love her too, Jean?" "Indeed I do, Henry, she is half my life to me now." "Thank God," he said, falling back on the pillows, "she will not be so utterly alone when I--" but he turned his face to the wall and stifled the terrible word. Jean shuddered. Suddenly he turned back again, and looking very earnestly at the motherly woman beside him, he began: "You will be good and generous to her all her life, will you not, Jean? Spare her all the pain and care and trouble you can, poor little one, she cannot bear much, cherish her always as you do to-day and she will not be ungrateful. Remember that she was all I had in life: property, riches and fame were as naught to me, except inasmuch as they were conducive to her welfare. And now that I must give them all up--" "Whatever can you mean, Henry Rayne, talking such nonsense; it is a shame, you are the very one will bury us all yet." He shook his head feebly. "No Jean, I will never see the spring-time," he said sadly. "Life is dear to me," he continued, "I would not now renounce it if I need not, but there is an Almighty will to whose power the mightiest mortal must yield without complaint. I have tasted life's bitter and sweet for three-score years and more, and I must not grumble now when I am called to leave down my weapons and tools. Other hands must tackle the unfinished task, my share is completed." "You are depressed in spirits to-day," said Jean d'Alberg consolingly, "the sun has gone down, and the darkness always makes you feel blue, but to-morrow you will have abandoned these gloomy reflections."