"Yes, by God's help, at least while you live; but dost thou think
thou art so ill, dear mother?--it is but fancy."

"Nay, I feel I am daily, hourly, drawing nearer my end, as if the
lamp of life were burning more and more dimly. Morning after
morning I rise weaker from my bed, and mortal strength seems slowly
and surely forsaking me. But it will be but a short parting; thou
must pray that we may live for ever together. God will grant it for
His dear Son's sake."

And the mother and son knelt down to pray.

It was too true, the English lady of Aescendune was slowly
declining--passing away, drawing nearer daily to the bright land
where her lost Edmund had gone before.

It was a complaint which no one understood, although a Jewish
physician, whom her husband in his anxiety consulted, prescribed a
medicine which he said would ensure her recovery in a few weeks.
This medicine the baron--for to such rank had Hugo de Malville been
raised, on his accession to the lands of Aescendune--this medicine
he would always administer with his own hand. Sometimes Wilfred was
standing by, and noticed that, dropped in water, it diffused at
first a sapphire hue, but that upon exposure to the air, that of
the ruby succeeded.

Oh, those days of anxiety and grief--those days when the loved
patient was so manifestly loosing her hold upon life, although
sometimes there would come a tantalising change for the better, and
bring back hopes never to be realised.