n the floor.

Her husband reached her first. "My dear," he said, "you heard?"

"Yes. Do you mean that I am--going to die, Ridgeley?"

There was, of course, no way out of it. "It means, my dear, that I've
got to take awfully good care of you. Your heart is bad."

Christopher interposed. "People live for years with a heart like that."

But her eyes sought her husband's. "How long do they live?"

"Many months--perhaps years--without excitement--"

This then had been the reason for his tenderness. He had known that she
was going to die, and was sorry. But for ten years she had wanted what
he might have given her--what he couldn't give her now--life as she had
dreamed of it.

She drew a quivering breath--"It isn't quite fair--is it?"

It didn't seem fair. The two doctors had faced much unfairness of the
kind of which she complained. But it was the first time that, for either
of them, it had come so close.

They had little comfort to give her, although they attempted certain
platitudes, and presently Ridgeley carried her to her room.

IV

She insisted the next morning on going to the circus with Christopher.
She had not slept well, and there were shadows under her eyes. The
physician in Christopher warred with the man. "You ought to rest," he
said at breakfast. Dunbar had gone to New York in accordance with his
usual schedule. There were other lives to think of; and Anne, when he
had looked in upon her that morning, had seemed almost shockingly
callous.

"No, I don't want to stay in bed, Ridgeley. I am going to the circus. I
shall follow your prescription--to eat and drink and be merry--"

"I don't think I have put it quite that way, Anne."

"You have. Quite. 'Death is death and life is life--so make the most of
it.'"

Perhaps she was cruel. But he knew, too, that she was afraid. "My dear,"
he said gently, "if you can get any comfort out of your own ideas, it
might be better."

"But you believe they are just my own ideas--you don't believe they are
true?"

"I should like to think they were true."

"You ought to rest," said Christopher at the breakfast table.

"I ought not. There are to be no more oughts--ever--"

He nodded as if he understood, leaning elbows on the table.

"I am going to pack the days full"--she went on. "Why not? I shall have
only a few months--and then--annihilation--" She flung her question
across the table. "You believe that, don't you?"

He evaded. "We sleep--'perchance