“Goodness! Was he tryin' to tell you somethin' all night?”
“All night,” said the doctor.
The woman sat for a moment in silence, her fat hands clasped together in her lap, the muscles of her face tense, her eyes fixed on the mountain, then she spoke. “Did he ever tell you?”
“Yes.”
“Was it somethin' he'd done?”
“N,” replied the doctor, “it was not anything he'd done.”
“What was it?”
“I did not understand it,” replied the doctor.
The woman rose.
“Good Lord!” she said, “a man on his deathbed a-trying all night to tell you somethin' an' then you didn't understand it!”