"But Joe! You should have asked this one first!"
"Should I?" was his distracted reply.
The second physician soon arrived, and was as surprised and annoyed as the first one when he found how he had been summoned. In a moment with angry apologies he was backing out of the door. But Joe caught his arm.
"You two and your etiquette be damned! Go in and look at that woman!" he cried. And with a glance into Joe's eyes, the second doctor turned to the first, muttered, "Hold this man. He's crazy "—and went into the bedroom.
It was long before Ethel forgot the look that appeared on Joe's face when the second physician came out and said:
"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do."
She went in with Joe to Amy. And her sister looked so relieved, the lines of pain all smoothed away. Heavily drugged, she was nearly asleep. Her hand felt for Joe's and closed on it, and with a little nestling movement of her soft lovely body she murmured smiling:
"Oh, so tired and sleepy now."
Again, in spite of her grief and fright, Ethel noticed how her sister's hand closed on that of her husband. In the months and years that followed, she recalled it vividly so many times.
Joe sat there long after Amy was dead.