This was on Wednesday morning. Night fell, but no one came. Thursday--but outside the hut no step stirred the parched, white dust. Friday--Saturday--no voice but his own moaning broke upon the sick man's straining ear. His professional experience gave him an excruciating foresight of his symptoms, and their result presented itself to him with horrible distinctness. As one by one he passed through the familiar conditions whose phases he had watched in other men a hundred times, he would have given his life for a temporary ignorance. His trained imagination had little mercy on him. He weighed his chances, and watched his fate with the sad exactness of knowledge. As the days passed, and no one came to him, he was aware of not being able to reason with himself clearly about his solitude. Growing weak, he remembered the averted faces of the people for whom he had labored, and whom he had loved. In the stress of his pain their estranged eyes gazed at him. He felt that he was deserted because he was distrusted. Patient as he was, this seemed hard. "They did not care enough for me to miss me," he said, aloud, gently. "I suppose I was not worth it. I had been in prison. I was a wicked man. I must not blame them." And again: "They would have come if they had known. They would not have let me _die_ alone. I don't think _she_ would have done that. I wonder where she is? Nobody has missed me--that is all. I must not mind." Growing weaker, he thought less and prayed more. He prayed, at last, almost all his time. When he did not pray, he slept. When he could not sleep, he prayed. He addressed God with that sublime familiarity of his, which fell from his lips with no more irreverence than the kiss of a child falling upon its mother's hand or neck. The murderer, the felon, the outcast, talked with the Almighty Holiness, as a man talketh with his friends. The deserted, distrusted, dying creature believed himself to be trusted by the Being who had bestowed on him the awful gift of life. "Lord," he said, softly, "I guess I can bear it. I'd like to see somebody--but I'll make out to get along.... Lord! I'm pretty weak. I know all about these spasms. You get delirious next thing, you know. Then you either get better or you never do. It'll be decided by Sunday night. Lord! Dear Lord!" he added, with a tender pause, "don't _You_ forget me! I hope _You'll_ miss me enough to hunt me up." It grew dark early on Saturday night. The sun sank under a thin, deceptive web of cloud. The shadow beneath the palmetto grew long over Scip's fresh grave. The stars were dim and few. The wind rose, and the lights in the city, where watchers wept over their sick, trembled on the frail breeze, and seemed to be multiplied, like objects seen through tears. Through the wooden shutter, Zerviah could see the lights, and the lonely palmetto, and the grave. He could see those few cold stars.