One evening when Bret came home, nagged out with factory annoyances, he saw old Gottlieb patting the trunk of the Sheila tree and shaking his head over it. Bret went to him and asked if there were any hope.
There were tears in Gottlieb’s eyes. He scraped them off with his wrist-bone and sighed:
“Die arme schöne Birke. Ain’t I told you she don’t like? She goink die. She goink die.”
“Take her back to the sunlight, then,” said Bret.
But Gottlieb shook his head. “Jetzt ist’s all zu spät. She goink die.”
Bret hurried on to the house, carrying a load of guilt. Sheila was lying on a chair on the piazza. She did not rise and run to him. Just to lift her hand to his seemed to be all that she could achieve. When he dropped to his knee and embraced her she seemed uncannily frail.
The servant announcing dinner found him there.
Bret said to Sheila, “Shall I carry you in?”
She declined the ride and the dinner.
Bret urged, “But you didn’t eat anything for lunch.”