But Job Slip and Captain Hap, who sat upon the doorsteps, listening from dawn to dark for any sign from Bayard’s room, said nothing at all.
It came to be evening, and the tide had risen with the wind. The sea called all night long. Helen sat alone with her husband.
He did not wander that night, but watched her face whenever he was not asleep.
“Kiss me, Helen,” he sighed at midnight.
She stooped and kissed him, but her lips took the air from him, and he struggled for it.
“You poor, poor girl!” he said.
The wind went down, and the tide went out. The dawn came with the ebb. Bayard fell into a sleep so gentle that Helen’s heart leaped with hope. She stole out into the study. Captain Hap was there; his shoes were off; he stepped without noise. The sunrise made a rose-light in the rooms.
“It is real sleep,” breathed Helen. “Don’t wake him, Captain.”
But when the old sailor-nurse would have taken her place for the morning watch, she shook her head. She went back and lay down on the cot beside her husband; he moved his hand, as if he groped for hers, and she was sorry that he had missed it for a moment.
“It shall not happen again,” she thought.