bleeding. Dead and gone like that, with absolutely
practically no warning! It don't seem possible! Taken down day before
yesterday, the doctor says, and commenced getting from bad to worse
right away. And this morning she goes out of her head and at
two-forty-five this afternoon all of a sudden her heart gives out on her
and she is dead before anybody knows it. Awful, awful!"

Mr. Lobel wagged a mournful poll.

"More than awful--actually it is horrifying!" quoth Mr. Geltfin. Visibly
at least his distress seemed greater than the distress of either of the
others. "All off alone up there by herself in some little rube town it
must come to her! Maybe if she had been down here with specialists and
surgeons and nurses and all she would 'a' been saved. Too bad, too bad!
People got no business going away from a big town! Me, I get nervous
even on a motor trip in the country and--"

"Everything possible which could be done was done," resumed Mr. Lobel.
"So you don't need you should worry there, Geltfin. The doctor tells me
he can't get no regular trained nurse on account there is so much
sickness from this flu and no regular nurses there anyway, but he tells
me he brings in his wife which she understands nursing and he says the
wife sticks right there day and night and gives every attention. There
ain't nothing we should reproach ourselves about, and besides we didn't
know even she was sick--nobody knew.

"Dead and gone, poor girl, and not one week ago--six days, if I got to
be exact--she is sitting right there in that same seat where you're
sitting now, Geltfin, looking just as natural and healthy as what you
look, Geltfin; looking just as if nothing is ever going to happen to
her."

Mr. Geltfin had hastily risen and moved nearer the outer door.

"An awful thing--that flu!" he declared. "Lobel, do you think maybe she
could 'a' had the germs of it on her then?"

"Don't be a coward, Geltfin!" rebuked his senior severely. "Look at me
how I am not frightened, and yet it was me she seen last, not you!
Besides, only to-day I am reading where that big doctor in Cincinnati,
Ohio--Silverwater--says it is not a disease which you could catch from
somebody else until after they have actually got down sick with it. Yes,
sir, she sits right there telling me good-by. 'Mr. Lobel,' she says to
me--I had just handed her her check--'Mr. Lobel,' she says, 'always to
you,' she says, 'I should be grateful. Always to you,' she says, 'I
shoul