Mrs. Grey’s fears had been only too true.  Many weeks of illness and of anxious nursing lay before her and her poor boy.  After all had been done that could be done, Dr. Grey was recalled, and the facts explained to him; though Dr. Anstruther, who seemed to understand him well, dwelt as lightly upon them as possible, consistent with that strict truth which was always spoken by the good doctor.  Still, it was enough.

When Dr. Anstruther was gone, Dr. Grey caine and stood by the sofa, in great distress.

“An illness of weeks—­delicate for months—­and perhaps weakly for life.  Oh, my poor boy!”

“Hush!” said Christian; “the child might hear.  Go, and sit down for a minute, and I will come to you.”

She came, and, leaning over him, laid her hand tenderly on her husband’s shoulder.  She could do no more, even though he was her husband.  She felt helpless to comfort him, for the key which unlocks all consolation was in her heart not yet found.  Only there came over her, with a solemn presentiment which had its sweetness still, the conviction that whatever happiness her lot might have missed, its duties were very plain, very sure.  All her life she would have, more or less, to take care of, not only these her children, but their father.

She stood beside him, holding his shaking hands between her two firm ones, till she heard Arthur call faintly.

“I must leave you now.  You will go to bed; and oh, do try to sleep.  Poor papa!”

“And you?”

“I shall sit up, of course.  Never mind me; I have done it many a time.”

“Will you have nobody with you?”

“No.  It would disturb Arthur, Hush! there is no time for speaking.  This once you must let me have my way.  Good-night, papa.”

But for all that, in the dead of the night, she heard the study-door open, and saw Dr. Grey come stealing in to where she sat watching—­as she was to watch for many a weary day and night—­beside his boy’s pillow.  He saw her likewise—­a figure, the like of which, husband and father as he had been, he had never seen before.  No household experience of his had ever yet shown him a woman in that light—­the dearest light in which any man can behold her.

A figure, quite different from the stately lady in white splendors of six hours before, sitting, dressed in a sober, soundless, dark-colored gown, motionless by the dim lamplight, but with the soft eyes open and watchful, and the tender hands ever ready for those endless wants of sickness at night, especially sickness that may be tending unto death, or unto the awful struggle between life and death, which most women have at some time of their lives to keep ward over till danger has gone by—­just the sort of figure, in short, that every man is sure to need beside him, once or more, in his journey between the cradle and the grave.  Happy he over whose cradle it has bent, and who, nearing the grave, shalt have such a one upon whose bosom he may close his weary eyes.