“Look here,” she began, and was surprised to find that she was only whispering. She wet her lips and smiled, and tried again, forming the words carefully with her lips. “Look here. She's dying—isn't she? Isn't she! She's dying, isn't she?”
Doctor Hertz pursed his lips. The nurse came over to her, and put a hand on her shoulder. Fanny shook her off.
“Answer me. I've got a right to know. Look at this!” She reached forward and picked up that inert, cold, strangely shriveled blue hand again.
“My dear child—I'm afraid so.”
There came from Fanny's throat a moan that began high, and poignant, and quavering, and ended in a shiver that seemed to die in her heart. The room was still again, except for the breathing, and even that was less raucous.
Fanny stared at the woman on the bed—at the long, finely-shaped head, with the black hair wadded up so carelessly now; at the long, straight, clever nose; the full, generous mouth. There flooded her whole being a great, blinding rage. What had she had of life? she demanded fiercely. What? What? Her teeth came together grindingly. She breathed heavily through her nostrils, as if she had been running. And suddenly she began to pray, not with the sounding, unctions thees and thous of the Church and Bible; not elegantly or eloquently, with well-rounded phrases, as the righteous pray, but threateningly, hoarsely, as a desperate woman prays. It was not a prayer so much as a cry of defiance—-a challenge.
“Look here, God!” and there was nothing profane as she said it. “Look here, God! She's done her part. It's up to You now. Don't You let her die! Look at her. Look at her!” She choked and shook herself angrily, and went on. “Is that fair? That's a rotten trick to play on a woman that gave what she gave! What did she ever have of life? Nothing! That little miserable, dirty store, and those little miserable, dirty people. You give her a chance, d'You hear? You give her a chance, God, or I'll——”
Her voice broke in a thin, cracked quaver. The nurse turned her around, suddenly and sharply, and led her from the room.