He had cried out at first in broken gasps for “The woman--the woman! She’s got something--to tell me. Something more--to tell me. I’ll hear it-- I’ll he-ar it-- I’ll know--everything!” he now shrieked, waving his skeleton arms to keep them away, and struggling to rise. But these efforts soon gave way to the helplessness of nature. His cries soon sank into a hoarse moaning, his struggles to an occasional wave with his arms towards the door, an appeal with his eyes to the doctor, who stood over him inexorable. Every agitating movement had dropped before Rosalind came in into the one grand effort for breath. That was all that was left him in this world to struggle for. A man of so many passions, who had got everything he had set his heart on in life: a little breath now, which the November breeze, the winnowing of the air by the great fan, every aid that could be used, could not bring to his panting lungs. Who can describe the moment when nurses and watchers, and children and lovers stand thus awed and silent, seeing the struggle turn into a fight for death--not against it: feeling their own hearts turn, and their prayers, to that which hitherto they have been resisting with all that love and skill and patience can do? Nature is strong at such a time. Few remember that the central figure has been an unkind husband, a careless father; they remember only that he is going away from them into darkness unfathomable, which they can never penetrate till they follow; that he is theirs, but soon will be theirs no more. Then there occurred a little pause; for the first moment Dr. Beaton, with a lifted finger and eyes suddenly turned upon the others, was about to say, “All is over,” when a faintly renewed throb of the dying pulse under his finger contradicted him. There was a dead calm for a few moments, and then a faint rally. The feverish, eager eyes, starting out of their sockets, seemed to calm, and glance with something like a dim perception at John Trevanion and Rosalind, who approached. Rosalind, entirely overcome by emotion and the terrible excitement of witnessing such an event, dropped down on her knees by the bedside, where with a slight flickering of the eyelids her father’s look seemed to follow her. But in the act that look was arrested by the form of his wife, standing always in the same position, waving the fan, sending wafts of air to him, the last and only thing he now wanted. His eyes steadied then with a certain meaning in them--a last gleam which gradually strengthened. He looked at her fixedly, with what in a person less exhausted would have been a wave of the hand towards her. Then there was a faint movement of the lips. “John!” was it perhaps? or “Look!” Then the words became more audible. “She’s--good nurse--faithful-- Air!--stands--hours--but--” Then the look softened a little, the voice grew stronger; “I’m--almost--sorry--” it said.