"Do you think 'Jesus, Lover of my Soul' is better than 'Lead, Kindly Light'? One wants one and the other wants the other, and they say I can decide! Look here, Mrs. Kenworthy, did you ever hear that mother hadn't but a year to live? Did she ever tell YOU that?"
"No, never. Why, dear?"
"Aunt Ethel said the doctor in Chicago told somebody yesterday that he told her last summer she hadn't a year to live. Didn't she tell you that?"
"No."
"She never told me; she never told anybody."
"Maybe she didn't believe it."
He seemed relieved at the thought. He said, "Maybe that's it. But she never told you where I was last summer, did she, until I was about coming home? Do you know why?"
"I didn't know why. Never mind, Johnnie!"
"Yes, she didn't know where I was; I didn't tell her! I just lit out; I never told her till I got to Hong-Kong. I knew she'd worry; I didn't care if she did. I never thought of it coming out like this, Mrs. Kenworthy! I made enough to come home on at Macao. You know, gambling, she'd call it; it was, too. I won five hundred dollars, almost—-four hundred and seventy—so then I cabled her. Oh, I don't know why I did that!"
"There's no use grieving over it now, Johnnie."