Rose-Marie nodded dumbly. It was Jim's voice that went on with the story.
"She ain't dead," he told Ella, piteously. "She ain't dead. An'—I promise yer true—I'll never do such a thing again. I promise yer true!"
Ella took a step toward him. Her face was suddenly lined, and old. "If she dies," she told him, "if she dies…" she hesitated, and then—"Much yer promises mean," she shrilled, "much yer promises—"
Rose-Marie had been watching Jim's face. Almost without meaning to she interrupted Ella's flow of speech.
"I think that he means what he says," she told Ella slowly. "I think that he means … what he says."
For she had seen the birth of something—that might have been soul—in
Jim's haggard eyes.
The child in Ella's arms stirred, weakly, and was still again. But the movement, slight as it was, made the girl forget her brother. Her dark head bent above the fair one.
"Honey," she whispered, "yer goin' ter get well fer Ella—ain't yer? Yer goin' ter get well—"
The door swung open with a startling suddenness, and Rose-Marie sprang forward, her hands outstretched. Framed in the battered wood stood Bennie—the tears streaking his face—and behind him was the Young Doctor. So tall he seemed, so capable, so strong, standing there, that Rose-Marie felt as if her troubles had been lifted, magically, from her shoulders. All at once she ceased to be afraid—ceased to question the ways of the Almighty. All at once she felt that Lily would get better—that the Volskys would be saved to a better life. And all at once she knew something else. And the consciousness of it looked from her wide eyes.
"You!" she breathed. "You!"