patted her head with a large consoling hand. "There, there,
daughter," he returned gently. "A little thing like that won't come
between you and me."

With his arm still about her, he drew her slowly to the bedside, and
stood looking down on the dying woman and the old cripple, who hovered
over her with the stained towel in her hand.

"I don't even know her name," he said, and immediately afterward, "She
must have had a hell of a life!" Though there was a wholesome pity in
his voice, it was without the weakness of sentimentality. He had done
what he could, and he was not the kind to worry over events which he
could not change. For a few minutes he stood there in silence; then,
because it was impossible for his energetic nature to remain inactive in
an emergency, he exclaimed suddenly, "The doctor ought to be here!" and
turning away from the bed, went rapidly across the room and through the
half open door into the hall.

Outside the darkness was dissolving in a drab light which crept slowly
up above the roofs of the houses; and while they waited this light
filled the yard and the room and the passage beyond the door which
Gideon Vetch had not closed. Far away, through the heavy boughs of the
ailantus tree, day was breaking in a glimmer of purple-few birds were
twittering among the leaves. Along the high brick wall a starved gray
cat was stealing like a shadow. Drawing her evening wrap closer about
her bare shoulders, Corinna realized that it was already day in the
street.

"She's gone," said the old hunchback, in a crooning whisper. Her twisted
hand was on the arm of the dead woman, which stretched as pallid and
motionless as an arm of wax over the figured quilt. "She's gone, and she
never knew that he had come." With a gesture that appeared as natural as
the dropping of a leaf, she pressed down the eyelids over the
expressionless eyes. "Well, that's the way life is, I reckon," she
remarked, as an epitaph over the obscure destiny of Mrs. Green.

"Yes, that's the way life is," repeated Corinna under her breath.
Already the old cripple had started about her inevitable ministrations:
but when Corinna tried to make Patty move away from the bedside, the
girl shook her head in a stubborn refusal.

"I am trying to believe it," she said. "I am trying to believe it, and I
can't." Then she looked at them calmly and steadily. "I want to think it
out by myself," she added. "Would you mind leaving me alone in here for
just a f