There came a moment, however, when the courage of Agnes failed, and she could bear it no more. She told her sister again that she had a headache, a pretence which Mary seemed to understand, asking no questions--and would go early to bed. But she did not go to bed. It seemed something to sit up, to accompany the vigil of the nurse, the possibility of the change with the intensity of feeling if not of presence. When Agnes closed her eyes she seemed to see the whole scene--the room with its shaded light, the wasted form scarcely visible in the bed; the nurse--a silent figure--watching the long hours through. She did not know that the nurse who was then with the boy was one who did not hope--which was a thing which would have added heaviness to the vigil had she known it. She had not the heart to go to bed. It seemed somehow as if she were doing something for him to sit up and count the hours and spend her soul in broken breaths of prayer. Oh, how broken, how interrupted with a hundred fantastic uncontrollable imaginations! Still it was something to join herself to the vigil, if no more. She was so absorbed in her own deep anxiety and thoughts that she did not hear any movement in the house, and thought nothing but that the household was asleep and hushed at its usual early hour. And when she heard a stealthy step come to her door after midnight, Agnes’ mind was so confused from reality by that vigil that she sprang up with a breathless terror lest it might be the nurse coming to call her to tell her the change had come, and that Mar’s life was fading away. She made a swift step to the door and opened it, unable to speak; but only found Lady Frogmore’s maid outside with an anxious face. “Oh, Miss Hill, I’m so glad you’re up,” she said; “I wish you would come to my lady--she is not herself at all. I can’t tell what is the matter with her.” “Hasn’t she gone to bed, Ford?”