Relieved from daily care and toil, she had more time to give to her sick husband.  She found him nearer the grave than she had supposed.

Four days more passed away, and Wilmer had come down to the very brink of the dark river of death.

It was night.  The two younger children were asleep, and the oldest boy, just in his tenth year, with his mother, stood anxiously over the low bed, upon which lay, gasping for breath, the dying husband and father.  The widow, who cannot forget the dear image of her departed one; the orphan, who remembers the dying agony of a fond father, can realize in a great degree the sorrows which pressed upon the hearts of these lone watchers by the bed of death.

The last hours of Wilmer’s life were hours of distinct consciousness.

“Constance,” he whispered, in a low difficult whisper, while his bright eyes were fixed upon her face—­“Constance, what will you do when I am gone?  I am but a burden on you now; but my presence I feel is something.”

His stricken-hearted wife could make no answer; but the tears rolled over her face in great drops, and fell fast upon the pillow of her dying husband.

“I cannot say, ‘do not weep,’” continued Wilmer.  “O that I could give a word of comfort! but your cup is full, running over, and I cannot dash it from your lips:—­Dear Constance! you have been to me a wife and a mother.  Let me feel your warm cheek once more against mine, for it is cold, very cold.  Hark! did you not hear voices?” And he strained his eyes towards the door, half-lifting himself up.

For a few moments he looked eagerly for some one to enter, and then fell back upon the bed with a heavy sigh, murmuring to himself, in a low disappointed tone—­

“I thought they were coming.”

“Who, love?” asked Mrs. Wilmer, eagerly.  But her husband did not seem to hear her question; but lay gasping for breath, the muscles of his neck and face distorted and giving to his countenance the ghastly expression of death.

“Who, love?—­who were coming?” eagerly asked Mrs. Wilmer again, her own heart trembling with a recurrence of the vague hopes with which the mysterious letter and timely supply had inspired her,—­hopes that had never been hinted to her husband.  But it seemed that he had given the incident his own interpretation.

But he heeded not her question.  For some time mother and son again stood over him, in troubled silence.  Perhaps half an hour had passed since he had spoken, when a slight bustle was heard, on the steps below, and then feet were heard quickly ascending, and hastening along the passage towards their chamber door.

“They come!  They come!” half-shrieked the dying man, springing up in the bed, and bending over towards the door, which was hastily flung open.  His eyes glared upon the two persons, a man and woman, both well advanced in life, as they entered.  That one anxious gaze was enough.  Looking up into the face of Constance, against whose breast his head had sunk, his countenance changed into an expression of intense delight, and he whispered—­