She broke into terrible coughing; and the old woman, dropping her knitting for the first time since they had entered the room, seized a towel from a chair by the bed. "Talking was too much for her," she said. "I thought she'd pull through. She was so much better—but talking was too much."
"She is so ill that she doesn't know what she is saying," murmured Corinna in the girl's ear. "She is out of her mind."
"No, she isn't out of her mind," replied Patty quietly. "She isn't out of her mind." In her ball gown of green and silver, like the colours of sunlit foam, with a wreath of artificial leaves in her hair, her loveliness was unearthly. "It is every bit true. I know it," she reiterated.
"She's bleeding again," muttered the old woman. "You'd better find the doctor. I ain't used to stopping hemorrhages." Then, as Corinna went out of the room, she added querulously to Patty: "She didn't have no business trying to talk; but she would do it. She said she'd do it if it killed her—and I reckon she don't mind much if it does—She'd have killed herself sooner than this if I'd let her alone." From the street below there came the sound of a motor horn; then the noise of a car running against the curbstone; and then the opening and shutting of a door, followed by rapid footsteps on the stairs.
"That's the doctor now, I reckon," remarked the old woman; but the words had scarcely left her lips when the door opened, and Corinna came back into the room with Gideon Vetch.
"Where is Patty?" he asked anxiously. "She oughtn't to be here."
"Yes, I ought to be here," answered Patty. As she turned toward Gideon Vetch, she swayed as if she were going to fall, and he caught her in his arms. "Go home, daughter," he said almost sternly. "You oughtn't to be here. Mrs. Page, can't you make her go home?"
"I have tried," responded Corinna; then a moan from the bed reached her, and she turned toward the woman who lay there. To die like that with nobody caring, with nobody even observing it! Exhausted by the loss of blood, the woman had fallen back into unconsciousness, and the towel the old cripple held to her lips was stained scarlet.
"The doctor had gone to bed. He will come as soon as he gets dressed," said Corinna. "He warned us to keep her quiet."
"If he don't hurry, she'll be gone before he gets here," replied the old woman, looking round over her twisted shoulder.