the tale to the end, finishing it the afternoon before we sailed.  It was his last continuous reading.  I noticed, when he slept, that his breathing was difficult, and I could see from day to day that he did not improve; but each evening he would be gay and lively, and he liked the entire family to gather around, while he became really hilarious over the various happenings of the day.  It was only a few days before we sailed that the very severe attacks returned.  The night of the 8th was a hard one.  The doctors were summoned, and it was only after repeated injections of morphine that the pain had been eased.  When I returned in the early morning he was sitting in his chair trying to sing, after his old morning habit.  He took my hand and said: 

“Well, I had a picturesque night.  Every pain I had was on exhibition.”

He looked out the window at the sunlight on the bay and green dotted islands. “‘Sparkling and bright in the liquid light,’” he quoted.  “That’s Hoffman.  Anything left of Hoffman?”

“No,” I said.

“I must watch for the Bermudian and see if she salutes,” he said, presently.  “The captain knows I am here sick, and he blows two short whistles just as they come up behind that little island.  Those are for me.”

He said he could breathe easier if he could lean forward, and I placed a card-table in front of him.  His breakfast came in, and a little later he became quite gay.  He drifted to Macaulay again, and spoke of King James’s plot to assassinate William II., and how the clergy had brought themselves to see that there was no difference between killing a king in battle and by assassination.  He had taken his seat by the window to watch for the Bermudian.  She came down the bay presently, her bright red stacks towering vividly above the green island.  It was a brilliant morning, the sky and the water a marvelous blue.  He watched her anxiously and without speaking.  Suddenly there were two white puffs of steam, and two short, hoarse notes went up from her.

“Those are for me,” he said, his face full of contentment.  “Captain Fraser does not forget me.”

There followed another bad night.  My room was only a little distance away, and Claude came for me.  I do not think any of us thought he would survive it; but he slept at last, or at least dozed.  In the morning he said: 

“That breast pain stands watch all night and the short breath all day.  I am losing enough sleep to supply a worn-out army.  I want a jugful of that hypnotic injunction every night and every morning.”

We began to fear now that he would not be able to sail on the 12th; but by great good-fortune he had wonderfully improved by the 12th, so much so that I began to believe, if once he could be in Stormfield, where the air was more vigorous, he might easily survive the summer.  The humid atmosphere of the season increased the difficulty of his breathing.