can get
them for seventy-five cents each, but not that kind. Did you ever price
roses like that? Just look at them! Um, how sweet--how I love them! A
two-dollar bill blooms on every one of them. Isn't that devotion for
you! And how does she come to send them to you? Well, now! What a hard
shell there must be on your heart! What a pity the fall didn't crack
it!"

As she talked she busied herself about the room; it was a bare,
antiseptic spot, fragrant of carbolic and formaldehyde. I could see that
she was chaffing me; but I let her have her way in this, just as she
ruled the diet, the naps and the airings.

Why should I lie for six weeks in a hospital without Jim Hosley coming
to see me? thought I. Why hadn't he insisted on sleeping on the mat just
outside the door if they would not let him in? Why had he not sent notes
hourly to learn of my condition? Why had I been left to strangers? There
could be no excuse for this, even though he were in jail, for he could
at least write me. If he were dead, killed in the fire, Miss Tescheron
would have told the nurse, for had she not brought me flowers? Had he
been injured she would certainly have told the nurse about us. He had
not been near me. He must, therefore, have skipped. In that case he must
be all that Tescheron had pictured him to me. But why had Tescheron
placed such confidence in Smith, whom he had known for such a short
time? That was certainly not like a shrewd business man. Of course, I
understood how anxious Tescheron was to get damaging evidence against
Hosley; but what had Smith shown him? Why had he taken no further
interest in me? Hosley must have skipped and Tescheron must have settled
down, believing that no more would be heard of him. Miss Tescheron was
still devoted to Jim, because she was sending me flowers. She still
hoped to reach him through me and prove him innocent. But I would
discourage her. I would not let her throw herself away on that fellow.
If he were not a wretch he would have been there to see me; and if he
were helpless as I was, then Miss Tescheron would be devoted to him and
would have told the nurse about us, as she was enough interested in me
to send me these beautiful flowers--me, whom she had never spoken to.
And so it wound around in my weak head.

It was hard to believe this of Jim Hosley, that great lumbering hulk of
humanity. How had he been able to assume that childish air and play the
part with me, a shrewd, calculating obser