“Oh, no.  I shall sit with him all night.”

“Very well.  But it is important that you should not speak to him,” he said with another touch of emphasis.

She resumed her seat and sat out the night, wide-awake and conscious of each movement on Wilbur’s part.  He was restless and moaning.  Twice the nurse summoned the doctor, and two or three times he came to the bed-side of his own accord.  She felt slighted, and once, when it seemed to her that Wilbur was in distress and anxious for something, she forestalled the nurse.

“He wishes water,” Selma said sternly, and she fetched a glass from the table and let him drink.

Dr. Page took breakfast with her.  She was conscious that somehow her vigil had affected his estimate of her, for his speech was frank and direct, as though he considered her now more fit to be treated with confidence.

“He is very ill, but he is holding his own.  If you will lie down for a few hours, I will call you to take Miss Barker’s place while she rests.”

This was gratifying, and tended to assuage her bitterness.  But the doctor appeared to her anxious, and spent only a few minutes at table.  He said as he rose,

“Excuse me, but Pauline—­does she know?”

“I will send her word.”

Selma would have been glad to dispense with the presence of her sister-in-law.  Their relations had not been sympathetic since the episode of Miss Bailey, and, though Pauline still dined at the house once a week, the intercourse between them had become reserved and perfunctory.  She grudged sharing with her what might be Wilbur’s last hours.  She grudged, too, permitting her to help to nurse him, especially now that her own capabilities were in the way of being recognized, for she remembered Dr. Page’s partiality for her.  Still, she appreciated that she must let her know.

Pauline arrived speedily, and Selma found herself sobbing in her arms.  She was pleased by this rush of feeling on her own part, and, confirmed in her belief that her sister-in-law was cold because she did not break down, and, shrinking from her efforts to comfort her, she quickly regained her self-control.  Pauline seemed composed and cheerful, but the unceasing watchfulness and manifest tension of the doctor were disconcerting, and as the afternoon shadows deepened, the two women sat grave and silent, appalled by the suspicion that Wilbur’s condition was eminently critical.  Yet Dr. Page volunteered to say to them presently: 

“If his heart holds out, I am hopeful that he will pull through.”

Dr. Page had given up all his duties for the sake of Wilbur.  He never left the house, manifestly devoting, as shown by the unflagging, absorbed scrutiny with which he noted every symptom and change, the fullest measure of his professional skill and a heart-felt purpose to save his friend’s life if human brain or human concentration could avail.  And yet he stated to Pauline in Selma’s hearing that, beyond keeping up the patient’s strength by stimulants, science was practically helpless, and that all they could do was to wait.