The nurse was bending over Madame Holiday forcing some brandy between the blue lips. Larry was by the bedside in an instant. The nurse stepped back with a sad little shake of the head. There was nothing she could do and she knew it, knew also there was nothing the young doctor could do professionally. He knelt, chafed the cold hands. The pale lips quivered a little, the glazed eyes opened for a second.
"Ned—Larry—give Philip love—" That was all. The eyes closed. There was a little flutter of passing breath. Granny was gone.
It was two days after Granny's funeral. Ted had gone back to college. Tony would leave for New York on the morrow. Life cannot wait on death. It must go on its course as inevitably as a river must go its way to the sea.
Yet to Tony it seemed sad and heartless that it should be so. She was troubled by her selfishness, first to Granny living and now to Granny dead. She said as much to her uncle sorrowfully.
"It isn't really heartless or unkind," he comforted her. "We have to go on with our work. We can't lay it down or scamp it just because dear Granny's work is done. It is no more wrong for you to go back to your play than it is for me to go back to my doctoring."
"I know," sighed Tony. "But I can't help feeling remorseful. I had so much time and Granny had so little and yet I wasn't willing to give her even a little of mine. I would have if I had known though. I knew I was selfish but I didn't know how selfish. I wish you had told me, Uncle Phil. Why didn't you? You told Ruth. You let her help. Why wouldn't you let me?" she half reproached.
"I tried to do what was best for us all. I wanted to find a reason for keeping Ruth with us and I did not think then and I don't think now that it was right or necessary to keep you back for the little comfort it could have brought to Granny. You must not worry, dear child. The blame if there is any is mine. I know you would have stayed if I had let you."
Back in college Ted sorted out his personal letters from the sheaf of bills. Among them was one from Madeline Taylor, presumably the answer to the one Ted had written her from the House on the Hill. He stared at the envelope, dreading to open it. He was too horribly afraid of what it might contain. Suddenly he threw the letter down on the table and his head went down on top of it.
"I can't do it," he groaned. "I can't. I won't. It's too hard."
But in a moment his head popped up again fiercely.