As we stood together near the doorway, Sandy and Danvers, with their friends, passed us on their way from the court-room, and my heart bled as I saw the look Nancy gave them, the look of pleading and affection, which Sandy avoided by talking to the one beside him; but Danvers, and none could blame him, considering his belief that she had done her utmost to get him hanged, looked full at her, his eyes showing scorn of her. I felt the slight body quiver, saw her sway back and forth for a little, and then, with a sob like a wounded child, she lost consciousness entirely. Hugh Pitcairn stayed by her until she was enough recovered for me to put her in the coach, and rode back to Stair with us, watching her all the time with an expression of alarm and tenderness, which drew him very near to me. CHAPTER XXVII THE MISTS ALL CLEARED AWAY On toward midnight I was awakened by Dickenson clamoring at my door, telling me that Nancy lay delirious, with a high fever, calling for me. Making what haste I could, I reached the poor child, to find her tossing from one side of the bed to the other, uttering hoarse cries, with neither intelligence in her glance nor recognition of either my presence or my voice. McMurtrie's attitude, after his examination, drove me wild with fear. "It's like to be a long case," he said. "I want ye to get Dr. Cameron from Glasgow. I'll stay by ye," he added; "I'll just move into the house, for, under God, it's not my intention to let Nancy Stair leave us yet." Weeks and weeks went by, during which it seemed as though I neither slept nor ate, listening to the moaning, or, what was far worse, broken talk of her work, of her cares, scraps of forgotten rhymes, bits of Latin verse, law references cited letter for letter, until I needed the doctor myself, who threatened to put me from the house unless I showed a more reasonable behavior. On in the third week of Nancy's fever I heard that Danvers's wife was ill, but this was nature, and I gave no more thought to the matter. On the afternoon of the day on which the news was brought me the Arran folks sent again to know if Dr. McMurtrie could be spared them, and we sent him over immediately. On his return I asked him, in a perfunctory way, how he had found things, and he returned an evasive answer; but upon my insisting for the truth, he told me that Isabel had given birth to a child the night before, but that it had died before morning, and that she herself was in a most desperate state. My heart went out to all this suffering, but death so near increased my anxiety for my own child, and when the news was brought me on the following morning that Isabel had passed away during the night, the fear for Nancy rose high in me, and I became like a crazed creature, wandering from one room to another, with half-begun prayers to God upon my lips and a feeling of utter helplessness heavy on my soul.