The vigil continued.

No one moved except Fogarty, who would now and then tiptoe quickly to the hearth, add a fresh log to the embers, and as quickly move back to his position behind the child’s crib.  The rising and falling of the blaze, keeping rhythm, as it were, to the hopes and fears of the group, lighted up in turn each figure in the room.  First the doctor sitting with hands resting on his knees, his aquiline nose and brow clearly outlined against the shadowy background in the gold chalk of the dancing flames, his black evening clothes in strong contrast to the high white of the coverlet, framing the child’s face like a nimbus.  Next the bent body of the wife, her face in half-tones, her stout shoulders in high relief, and behind, swallowed up in the gloom, out of reach of the fire-. gleam, the straight, motionless form of the fisherman, standing with folded arms, grim and silent, his unseen eyes fixed on his child.

Far into the night, and until the gray dawn streaked the sky, this vigil continued; the doctor, assisted by Fogarty and the wife, changing the poultices, filling the child’s lungs with hot steam by means of a paper funnel, and encouraging the mother by his talk.  At one time he would tell her in half-whispered tones of a child who had recovered and who had been much weaker than this one.  Again he would turn to Fogarty and talk of the sea, of the fishing outside the inlet, of the big three-masted schooner which had been built by the men at Tom’s River, of the new light they thought of building at Barnegat to take the place of the old one—­anything to divert their minds and lessen their anxieties, stopping only to note the sound of every cough the boy gave or to change the treatment as the little sufferer struggled on fighting for his life.

When the child dozed no one moved, no word was spoken.  Then in the silence there would come to their ears above the labored breathing of the boy the long swinging tick of the clock, dull and ominous, as if tolling the minutes of a passing life; the ceaseless crunch of the sea, chewing its cud on the beach outside or the low moan of the outer bar turning restlessly on its bed of sand.

Suddenly, and without warning, and out of an apparent sleep, the child started up from his pillow with staring eyes and began beating the air for breath.

The doctor leaned quickly forward, listened for a moment, his ear to the boy’s chest, and said in a quiet, restrained voice: 

“Go into the other room, Mrs. Fogarty, and stay there till I call you.”  The woman raised her eyes to his and obeyed mechanically.  She was worn out, mind and body, and had lost her power of resistance.

As the door shut upon her Doctor John sprang from the stool, caught the lamp from the wall, handed it to Fogarty, and picking the child up from the crib, laid it flat upon his knees.

He now slipped his hand into his pocket and took from it a leather case filled with instruments.