“She is not here.  She could not come now.  She is sick in New York, but will join us in a few days.”

There was a look of intense disappointment in Wilford’s face, which even his father’s warm greeting could not dissipate, and Morris saw the great tears as they dropped upon the pillow, the proud man trying hard to repress them, and asking no questions concerning any one at home.  He was too weak to talk, but he held Bell’s hand firmly in his as if afraid that she would leave him, while his eyes rested alternately upon her face and that of his father, who, wholly unmanned at the fearful change in his son, laid his head upon the bed and cried aloud.

Next morning Bell was very white and her voice trembled as she sought her brother’s side and asked how he had rested.  She had come from a conference with Dr. Morris, who had told her that her brother would die.

“He may live a week and he may not,” he said, adding solemnly:  “As his sister you will tell him of his danger while there is time to seek the refuge without which death is terrible.”

“Oh, if I could only pray with and for him,” Bell thought, as she went next to her brother, mourning her misspent days, and feeling her courage giving way when at last she stood in his presence and met his kindly smile.

“I dreamed it was all a dream,” he said, “and that you were not here after all.  I am so glad to find it real.  How long before I can go home, do you suppose?”

He had stumbled upon the very thing Bell was there to talk about, his question indicating that he had no suspicion of the truth.  Nor had he, and it came like a thunderbolt, when Bell, forgetting all her prudence, said impetuously: 

“Oh, Wilford, maybe you’ll never go home.  Maybe you’ll—­”

“Not die!” Wilford exclaimed, clasping his hands with sudden emotion.  “Not die, you don’t mean that.  Who told you so?  Who said I was near to death?”

“Dr. Grant,” was Bell’s reply, which brought a fierce frown to Wilford’s face, and awoke all the angry passions of his heart.

“Dr. Grant,” he repeated.  “He says so because he wishes it.  He would like me removed from his path, but it shall not be.  I will not die.  Tell him that.  I will not die,” and Wilford’s voice was hoarse with passion as he raised his clinched fists in the air.

He was terribly excited, and in her fright Bell ran for Dr. Grant.  But Wilford motioned him back, hurling after him words which kept him from the room the entire day, while the sick man rolled, and tossed, and raved in the delirium, which had returned, and which wore him out so fast.  No one had the least influence over him except Marian Hazelton, who, without a glance at Mr. Cameron or Bell, glided to his side, and with her presence and gentle words soothed him into comparative quiet, so that the bitter denunciations against the saint who wanted him to die, ceased, and he fell into a troubled sleep.