Hour after hour Agnes battled with the demon fever which was gnawing
at the vitals of her beloved George. At intervals her care seemed to
get the better of the disorder, and to cause it to loosen its
grip. But, alas! after twenty-four hours of unceasing toil and
anxiety, poor devoted Agnes was forced to endure the mental agony of
seeing Harkness die. The last thing he did was to smile up in her
yearning face, and try to thank her for all she had done for him. His
voice was gone; but she knew what the slowly moving parched lips were
saying for all that. Slipping her arms under his shoulders, Agnes bent
down, and raising him up ever so gently, she pressed him to her bosom
and kissed him. Even as she did so Harkness breathed his last. With a
deep sigh, Agnes allowed the corpse to sink gradually down again upon
the bed, composed the limbs, closed the eyes, and bound up the fallen
jaw. These sad offices finished, her next care was to see that the
body was properly interred in a separate grave by itself--a matter
which was quite difficult of accomplishment. But she succeeded in
having the burial so effected.

The death of Mr. Harkness under such circumstances was, of course,
quite distressing to Agnes Arnold, and somehow or other she could not
banish from her mind a presentiment of an additional calamity that was
about to befall her. Yet her mind was perfectly at ease, so far as she
herself was concerned.

Never at any moment could death surprise her; for, from early years,
she had lived up to the admonition of our Saviour, "Be ye also ready."

Yet this gloom, that wrapped itself around her like an ominous pall,
she could not penetrate, nor cast from her, no matter how strenuously