When Washington reached home, he recognized at once how serious his father’s case was.  The darkened room, the labored breathing and occasional moanings of the patient, the tip-toeing of the attendants and their whispered consultations, were full of sad meaning.  For three or four nights Mrs. Hawkins and Laura had been watching by the bedside; Clay had arrived, preceding Washington by one day, and he was now added to the corps of watchers.  Mr. Hawkins would have none but these three, though neighborly assistance was offered by old friends.  From this time forth three-hour watches were instituted, and day and night the watchers kept their vigils.  By degrees Laura and her mother began to show wear, but neither of them would yield a minute of their tasks to Clay.  He ventured once to let the midnight hour pass without calling Laura, but he ventured no more; there was that about her rebuke when he tried to explain, that taught him that to let her sleep when she might be ministering to her father’s needs, was to rob her of moments that were priceless in her eyes; he perceived that she regarded it as a privilege to watch, not a burden.  And, he had noticed, also, that when midnight struck, the patient turned his eyes toward the door, with an expectancy in them which presently grew into a longing but brightened into contentment as soon as the door opened and Laura appeared.  And he did not need Laura’s rebuke when he heard his father say: 

“Clay is good, and you are tired, poor child; but I wanted you so.”

“Clay is not good, father—­he did not call me.  I would not have treated him so.  How could you do it, Clay?”

Clay begged forgiveness and promised not to break faith again; and as he betook him to his bed, he said to himself:  “It’s a steadfast little soul; whoever thinks he is doing the Duchess a kindness by intimating that she is not sufficient for any undertaking she puts her hand to, makes a mistake; and if I did not know it before, I know now that there are surer ways of pleasing her than by trying to lighten her labor when that labor consists in wearing herself out for the sake of a person she loves.”

A week drifted by, and all the while the patient sank lower and lower.  The night drew on that was to end all suspense.  It was a wintry one.  The darkness gathered, the snow was falling, the wind wailed plaintively about the house or shook it with fitful gusts.  The doctor had paid his last visit and gone away with that dismal remark to the nearest friend of the family that he “believed there was nothing more that he could do” —­a remark which is always overheard by some one it is not meant for and strikes a lingering half-conscious hope dead with a withering shock; the medicine phials had been removed from the bedside and put out of sight, and all things made orderly and meet for the solemn event that was impending; the patient, with closed eyes, lay scarcely breathing; the watchers sat by and wiped the gathering damps from his forehead while the silent tears flowed down their faces; the deep hush was only interrupted by sobs from the children, grouped about the bed.