"None," was the conclusive reply. "She is sinking rapidly."
A long pause. The nurse stood motionless, the surgeon pursued his slow and noiseless tread. Suddenly he stopped and turned his head, speaking in quick tones.
"Where's the baby, Mrs. Dade?"
"He's in the cradle, sir, by her side. She looked as if she wanted him left there."
And then the doctor remembered, and paced on as before. He had spoken in momentary forgetfulness.
The silence within the sick chamber was as great and more painful: the moments of bustle and anxiety had passed away. The fire in the grate had burnt down to embers; a pale light was emitted from the shaded lamp; the air was redolent, almost to faintness, of perfume. Essences had been sprinkled about in profusion, as if they would make pleasant the way to death! The heavy blue velvet curtains were drawn back from the bed; and, lying there, was a form young and fair, with a pale, exhausted face. Everything in the chamber spoke of wealth, comfort, luxury: but not all the wealth and luxury of the whole world combined, had they been brought together, could have arrested the fast-fleeting spirit already on its wing. On the far side of the bed stood a pretty cradle, ornamented with blue silk and lace: the little child so quietly and unconsciously sleeping in it, had seen the light but yesterday.
Leaning over the bed was a young man bowed down with grief, of attractive features and gentlemanly bearing. Not long had they been man and wife; but a year at most; and now it was hard to part; doubly hard with this new tie which had been born to them. Yet they both knew it must be so, and he had thrown his arm lightly across her, and laid his cheek, wet with tears, against hers, vainly wishing, perhaps half hoping, that his heart's bitter prayers might avail to renew her life. The silence between them had been long and agonizing: each heart was aching with painful thoughts; yet it seemed in that last hour as if they could not give them utterance. May Heaven shed its balm on all such partings!
He raised his face and pushed his hair from his brow as he looked at her, for she had moved restlessly, as if in sudden pain. It was not pain of body: of that she was free in this, the passing: but pain of mind. An anxious care, one of the many she must leave on earth, was pressing upon that lady's brain.
"When the months and the years go by," she murmured, breaking the silence, and clasping her hands in feeble supplication to him, "and you think of another wife, oh choose, one that will be a mother to my child. Be not allured by beauty, be not tempted by wealth, be not ensnared by specious deceit; but take one who will be to him the loving mother that I would have been. Some one whom you know well and can trust. Not a stranger, not a----"
"I shall never marry again," he interrupted in impassioned tones, when his first surprise allowed him to speak. "You, my first and only love, shall be the sole wife ever taken to my bosom. Never shall another woman usurp your place. And here I swear----"