Daisy Banks was her most constant attendant, and had taken up her residence at the vicarage with Miss Purley, who had told the vicar she would do anything to oblige him; and when he thanked her warmly, had gone up to her room at once to prepare, and sat down, poor woman, and cried with misery, because she was forty-three, very thin, and no one ever had, and probably never would, ask her to be a wife. So the vicar became Doctor Purley's lodger, never once crossing his own threshold, and Mrs Glaire went down daily from her son's sick bed, to see how poor Eve sped. Days and days of anxiety and anxious watching of the doctor's face as he came home from his visits, and little hope. Days when the eminent physician from the county town came over, to give his supplementary advice; and still, though both doctors shook their heads, Eve lived on-- a wavering flame, ready to be extinguished by the first rough waft of air. "Selwood," said the doctor one night, "I've lost over a stone weight since I've been attending that poor girl, and I've done my best; everything I know, or could get from others. I'm going back now, for this is about the critical time, and I shall stay all night. Why, man! Come, come, I say." He laid his hand upon the vicar's shoulder, for the strong man's head had gone down upon his hands. He had fought his grief back, and borne so much--now he had given way. "I am weak," said the vicar, gently. "Pray go." "Yes," said the stout old fellow with animation; and the desponding feeling seemed to have gone. "Yes, I'll go and watch while you pray; and between us, with God's help, we may save her yet." As the night wore on, and the town grew stilled in sleep, the vicar rose and left the house, to go silently down the High Street, past the church, to his own home, where he could lean against the gate and watch for hour after hour the little lighted window with its drawn blind, and the one glowing spot where the candle burned. Hour after hour, sometimes walking up and down, but always with the prayer upon his lip that she might be spared. Sometimes a shadow crossed the blind, and a light went through the house. Then all was still again, and the night went on, with the stars that had risen as he watched passing over his head, and at last a faint, pearly light beginning to dawn in the east, and grow broader. The first chirp of a morning bird, as the pale light grew stronger, answering chirps, and the loud alarm-note of the blackbird that rose from the hedge beside him, dipped down, and skimmed rapidly along the ditch. The light brightened in the east, but paled in the window of the sick girl's room; and the watcher's heart sank low, for he knew too well that this was the hour when vitality was at its lowest ebb, and that, perhaps, at this very time the gentle spirit of Eve might be winging its way to a purer realm.