ould hear
the low murmur of voices in her mother's room across the hall.
Suddenly the cries and moans ceased. A great joy irradiated the
child. She said to herself that her mother was better, that the
doctor had given her something to help her.

She got off the bed, wrapped her little pink garment around her, and
stole across the hall to her mother's room. The whole hall was filled
with a strange, sweet smell which made her faint, but along with the
faintness came such an increase of joy that it was almost ecstasy.
She turned the knob of her mother's door, but, before she could open
it, it was opened from the other side, and her father's face, haggard
and resentful as she had never seen it, appeared.

"Go back!" he whispered, fiercely.

"Oh, father, is mother better?"

"Go back!"

Maria went back, and again the tempest of woe and injury swept over
her. Why should her father speak to her so? Why could he not tell her
if her mother were better? She sat in her little rocking-chair beside
the window, and looked out at the night. She was conscious of a
terrible sensation which seemed to have its starting-point at her
heart, but which pervaded her whole body, her whole consciousness.
She was conscious of such misery, such grief, that it was like a
weight and a pain. She knew now that her mother was no better, that
she might even die. She heard no more of the cries and moans, and
somehow now, the absence of them seemed harder to bear than they
themselves had been. Suddenly she heard her mother's door open. She
heard her father's voice, and the doctor's in response, but she still
could not distinguish a word. Presently she heard the front door open
and close softly. Then her father hurried down the steps, and got
into the doctor's buggy and drove away. It was dark, but she could
not mistake her father. She knew that he had gone for another doctor,
probably Dr. Williams, who lived in the next town, and was considered
very skilful. The other doctor was remaining with her mother. She did
not dare leave her room again. She sat there watching an hour, and a
pale radiance began to appear in the east, which her room faced. It
was like dawn in another world, everything had so changed to her. The
thought came to her that she might go down-stairs and make some
coffee, if she only knew how. Her father might like some when he
returned. But she did not know how, and even if she had she dared not
leave her room again.

The pale ligh