“Edith, for God's sake!”
The girl was only partially conscious. Ellen ran down the stairs and into Willy's room.
“Get up,” she cried, shaking him. “That girl's killed herself.”
“Lily!”
“No, Edith. Carbolic acid.”
Even then he remembered her mother.
“Don't let her hear anything, It will kill her,” he said, and ran up the stairs. Almost immediately he was down again, searching for alcohol; he found a small quantity and poured that down the swollen throat. He roused Dan then, and sent him running madly for Doctor Smalley, with a warning to bring him past Mrs. Boyd's door quietly, and to bring an intubation set with him in case her throat should close. Then, on one of his innumerable journeys up and down the stairs he encountered Mrs. Boyd herself, in her nightgown, and terrified.
“What's the matter, Willy?” she asked. “Is it a fire?”
“Edith is sick. I don't want you to go up. It may be contagious. It's her throat.”
And from that Mrs. Boyd deduced diphtheria; she sat on the stairs in her nightgown, a shaken helpless figure, asking countless questions of those that hurried past. But they reassured her, and after a time she went downstairs and made a pot of coffee. Ensconced with it in the lower hall, and milk bottle in hand, she waylaid them with it as they hurried up and down.