"I know," frowned the other; "and I've tried--day after day I've tried.

But there's nothing. I've exhausted every means in my power. I didn't know but you--" He paused questioningly.

The younger man shook his head.

"No," he said. "If you can't, I can't. You've been her physician for years. If anyone knows how to reach her, you should know. I suppose you've thought of--her son?"

"Oh, yes. Jed was sent for long ago, but he had gone somewhere into the interior on a prospecting trip, and was very hard to reach. It is doubtful if word gets to him at all until--too late. As you know, perhaps, it is rather an unfortunate case. He has not been home for years, anyway, and the Nortons--James is Mrs. Darling's nephew--have been making all the capital they can out of it, and have been prejudicing her against him--quite unjustly, in my opinion, for I think it's nothing more nor less than thoughtlessness on the boy's part."

"Hm-m; too bad, too bad!" murmured the other, as he turned and led the way to the street door.

Back in the sick-room the old woman still lay motionless on the bed. She was wondering--as she had wondered so often before--why it took so long to die. For days now she had been trying to die, decently and in order.

There was really no particular use in living, so far as she could see.

Ella and Jim were very kind; but, after all, they were not Jed, and Jed was away--hopelessly away. He did not even want to come back, so Ella and Jim said.

There was the money, too. She did not like to think of the money. It seemed to her that every nickel and dime and quarter that she had painfully wrested from the cost of keeping soul and body together all these past years lay now on her breast with a weight that crushed like lead. She had meant that money for Jed. Ella and Jim were kind, of course, and she was willing they should have it; yet Jed--but Jed was away.

And she was so tired. She had ceased to rouse herself, either for the medicine or for the watery broths they forced through her lips. It was so hopelessly dragged out--this dying; yet it must be over soon. She had heard them tell the neighbors only yesterday that she was unconscious and that she did not know a thing of what was pa.s.sing around her; and she had smiled--but only in her mind. Her lips, she knew, had not moved.

They were talking now--Ella and Jim--out in the other room. Their voices, even their words, were quite distinct, and dreamily, indifferently, she listened.

"You see," said Jim, "as long as I've got ter go ter town ter-morrer, anyhow, it seems a pity not ter do it all up at once. I could order the coffin an' the undertaker--it's only a question of a few hours, anyway, an' it seems such a pity ter make another trip--jest fer that!"

In the bedroom the old woman stirred suddenly. Somewhere, away back behind the consciousness of things, something snapped, and sent the blood tingling from toes to fingertips. A fierce anger sprang instantly into life and brushed the cobwebs of lethargy and indifference from her brain. She turned and opened her eyes, fixing them upon the oblong patch of light that marked the doorway leading to the room beyond where sat Ella and Jim.

"Jest fer that," Jim had said, and "that" was her death. It was not worth, it seemed, even an extra trip to town! And she had done so much--so much for those two out there!

"Let's see; ter-day's Monday," Jim went on. "We might fix the fun'ral for Sat.u.r.day, I guess, an' I'll tell the folks at the store ter spread it. Puttin' it on Sat'day'll give us a leetle extry time if she shouldn't happen ter go soon's we expect--though there ain't much fear o' that now, I guess, she's so low. An' it'll save me 'most half a day ter do it all up this trip. I ain't--what's that?" he broke off sharply.

From the inner room had seemed to come a choking, inarticulate cry.

With a smothered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n Jim picked up the lamp, hurried into the sick-room, and tiptoed to the bed. The gaunt figure lay motionless, face to the wall, leaving a trail of thin gray hair-wisps across the pillow.

"Gosh!" muttered the man as he turned away.

"There's nothin' doin'-but it did give me a start!"

On the bed the woman smiled grimly--but the man did not see it.

It was snowing hard when Jim got back from town Tuesday night. He came bl.u.s.tering into the kitchen with stamping feet and wide-flung arms, scattering the powdery whiteness in all directions.

"Whew! It's a reg'lar blizzard," he began, but he stopped short at the expression on his wife's face. "Why, Ella!" he cried.

"Jim--Aunt Abby sat up ten minutes in bed ter-day. She called fer toast an' tea."

Jim dropped into a chair. His jaw fell open.

"S-sat up!" he stammered.

"Yes."

"But she--hang it all, Herrick's comin' ter-morrer with the coffin!"

"Oh, Jim!"

"Well, I can't help it! You know how she was this mornin'," retorted Jim sharply. "I thought she _was_ dead once. Why, I 'most had Herrick come back with me ter-night, I was so sure."

"I know it," shivered Ella, "but you hadn't been gone an hour 'fore she began to stir an' notice things. I found her lookin' at me first, an' it give me such a turn I 'most dropped the medicine bottle in my hand. I was clearin' off the little table by her bed, an' she was followin' me around with them big gray eyes. 'Slickin' up?' she asks after a minute; an' I could 'a' dropped right there an' then, 'cause I _was_ slickin' up, fer her fun'ral. 'Where's Jim?' she asks then. 'Gone ter town,' says I, kind o' faint-like. 'Umph!' she says, an' snaps her lips tight shet. After a minute she opens 'em again. 'I think I'll have some tea and toast,' she says, casual-like, jest as if she'd been callin' fer victuals ev'ry day fer a month past. An' when I brought it, if she didn't drag herself up in bed an' call fer a piller to her back, so's she could set up. An' there she stayed, pantin' an' gaspin', but _settin' up_--an' she stayed there till the toast an' tea was gone."

"Gosh!" groaned Jim. "Who'd 'a' thought it? 'Course 't ain't that I grudge the old lady's livin'," he added hurriedly, "but jest now it's so--unhandy, things bein' as they be. We can't very well--" He stopped, a swift change coming to his face. "Say, Ella," he cried, "mebbe it's jest a spurt 'fore--'fore the last. Don't it happen sometimes that way--when folks is dyin'?"

"I don't know," shuddered Ella. "Sh-h! I thought I heard her." And she hurried across the hall to the sitting-room and the bedroom beyond.

It did not snow much through the night, but in the early morning it began again with increased severity. The wind rose, too, and by the time Herrick, the undertaker, drove into the yard, the storm had become a blizzard.

"I calc'lated if I didn't git this 'ere coffin here purty quick there wouldn't be no gettin' it here yet awhile," called Herrick cheerfully, as Jim came to the door.

Jim flushed and raised a warning hand.

"Sh-h! Herrick, look out!" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "She ain't dead yet.

You'll have ter go back."

"Go back!" snorted Herrick. "Why, man alive, 'twas as much as my life's worth to get here. There won't be no goin' back yet awhile fer me nor no one else, I calc'late. An' the quicker you get this 'ere coffin in out of the snow, the better't will be," he went on authoritatively as he leaped to the ground.

It was not without talk and a great deal of commotion that the untimely addition to James Norton's household effects was finally deposited in the darkened parlor; neither was it accomplished without some echo of the confusion reaching the sick-room, despite all efforts of concealment. Jim, perspiring, red-faced, and palpably nervous, was pa.s.sing on tiptoe through the sitting-room when a quavering voice from the bedroom brought him to a halt.

"Jim, is that you?"

"Yes, Aunt Abby."

"Who's come?"

Jim's face grew white, then red.

"C-ome?" he stammered.

"Yes, I heard a sleigh and voices. Who is it?"

"Why, jest-jest a man on--on business," he flung over his shoulder, as he fled through the hall.

Not half an hour later came Ella's turn. In accordance with the sick woman's orders she had prepared tea, toast, and a boiled egg; but she had not set the tray on the bed when the old woman turned upon her two keen eyes.

"Who's in the kitchen, Ella, with Jim?"

Ella started guiltily.

"Why, jest a--a man."

"Who is it?"