Cassandra sat beside him alone. All night long she had been there unsleeping, hollow-eyed, and worn with tearless grief. She had done all she knew how to do. Before going for help she had removed his clothing and bound about his body strips torn from her dress to stop the bleeding of his shoulders where the silver bullet had torn across them. How the ball had missed giving a mortal wound was like a miracle. Hoke Belew had tried to arouse him, but had failed. At intervals, during the night, Cassandra had managed to drop a little whiskey between his lips with a spoon, and she had bathed him with the stimulant over heart and lungs, and chafed his hands, and had tried to warm his feet by rubbing them and wrapping them up between jugs of hot water. She had bathed his bruised head and cut away the softly curling hair from the spot where his head had struck the rock. What more she could do she knew not, and now she sat at his side still chafing his hands and waiting for Hoke Belew's return. Hoke had gone to the station to telegraph for Bishop Towers. Fortunately, as the hotel was so soon to be opened and the busy summer life to begin, the operator was already there. Azalea, in the great room, was preparing dinner, stopping now and then to touch her baby's cradle, or to stoop a moment over the treasure therein. Aunt Sally sat in the doorway smoking her cob pipe and telling grewsome tales of how she had "seen people hurted that-a-way and nevah come out en hit." Sally had ridden over to give help and sympathy, but Cassandra had said she would watch alone. She had eaten nothing since the day before, only sipping the coffee Azalea had brought her. It was one of those breathless hours before a rain when not a leaf stirs; even the birds were silent. Cassandra tried once more to give David a few drops of the whiskey, and this time it seemed as if he swallowed a little. She thought she saw his eyelids quiver, and her heart pounded suffocatingly in her breast. She dropped beside him on her knees and once again tried to give him the only stimulant they had. This time she was sure he took it, and, still kneeling there, she bowed her head and pressed her lips upon the hand she had been chafing. Did it move or not? She could not tell, and again she sat gazing in the still, white face. Oh, the suspense! Oh, the joy that was agony! If this were truly the awakening and meant life! In her intensity of longing for some further signs she drew slowly nearer and nearer, until at last her lips touched his. Then in shame she hid her face in the quilt at his side and, weak with the exhaustion of her long anguish and fasting and watching, she wept the first tears--tears of hope she was not strong enough to bear. As she thus knelt, weeping softly, his fluttering eyelids lifted and he saw her there, and felt the quivering hand beneath his head.