“That’s true,” said Billy, “so you needn’t bother your head about going to that place; you’re better beside me. You’d never find it; I know you wouldn’t.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Kate, with dreadful earnestness. “I’m afraid I’ll be left wandering about in the dark at the other side. I’ve heard that there’s a man with a light shining out of his head walking about ready to take folks’ hands and guide them, but he’s a kind of an angel, and would never look at me. Isn’t it a pity that Rodie kicked so hard? That’s what has done it all. And now I’m always sinking. I often catch myself up when I’ve sunk about half-way through the world, and grip on to your hand just to keep myself here, but if I get much weaker I’ll not be able to do that.”
Billy clenched his teeth and hands, and said—
“Yes, Rodie did it all. He called me a dog the other day, and maybe I am, for I feel like biting him. Yes, I’ll bite him some day, when I’m big enough.”
“Could you not help me, Billy?” said Kate, after a long silence. “I’m afraid to go there without knowing something of the road. Couldn’t you get some one to tell me how to do when I get through the hole?”
“I tell you there ain’t no such hole; and don’t you speak about it, for I do-o-o-n’t like it,” sobbed Billy, almost in anger; “but if there was, I’d be willing glad to go into it to find the road for you,” he added, more lovingly, as he noted the distressed look which gathered on her pinched face. “Maybe you need a new kind of medicine. I’ll ask them to-day when I’m at the dispensary.”
Billy did ask, and in such a way that the doctor’s attention was roused, and he whispered a few words to one of the students, who put on his hat and kindly told Billy that he was going home with him. The student was a tall man, and had difficulty in getting into the hole where Kate lay, but when he did, and looked into her pinched face and brilliant eyes, and listened to her quick, gasping breath, he merely gave his head a slight shake, and knelt down by the bedside to take her thin hand tenderly in his own. He had been very merry and chatty with Billy on the way, but now he was grave and solemn, and scarcely spoke a word.
“Will she be better soon?” asked Billy at last, when the silence had almost sickened him.
The student looked down on the white features of the sick girl, and said softly—
“Yes—very soon.”