He drew it back.
"Oh, Phineas, lad, don't touch me--only let me rest." The weak, querulous voice--that awful longing for rest! What if, despite all the physician's assurances, he might be sinking, sinking--my friend, my hope, my pride, all my comfort in this life--passing from it and from me into another, where, let me call never so wildly, he could not answer me any more, nor come back to me any more.
Oh, God of mercy! if I were to be left in this world without my brother! I had many a time thought over the leaving him, going quietly away when it should please the Giver of all breath to recall mine, falling asleep, encompassed and sustained by his love until the last; then, a burden no longer, leaving him to work out a glorious life, whose rich web should include and bring to beautiful perfection all the poor broken threads in mine.

But now, if this should be all vain, if he should go from me, not I from him--I slid down to the ground, to my knees, and the dumb cry of my agony went up on high.
How could I save him?
There seemed but one way; I sprung at it; stayed not to think if it were right or wrong, honourable or dishonourable.

His life hung in the balance, and there was but one way; besides, had I not cried unto God for help?
I put aside the blind, and looked out of doors.

For weeks I had not crossed the threshold; I almost started to find that it was spring.
Everything looked lovely in the coloured twilight; a blackbird was singing loudly in the Abbey trees across the way; all things were fresh and glowing, laden with the hope of the advancing year.

And there he lay on his sick-bed, dying! All he said, as I drew the curtain back, was a faint moan--"No light! I can't bear the light! Do let me rest!" In half-an-hour, without saying a word to human being, I was on my way to Ursula March.
She sat knitting in the summer-parlour alone.