"That tombstone. I can see it as plain as daylight. Ef I look somewhar else, it moves whar I look. 'Hear lays Little Buck Wolfe.' Are you shore he ain't dead, Mis' Mason, plum' shore?"
"Very sure," promptly. "He's perfectly safe."
"Ef you don't keer, Mis' Mason," and Tot strove to lift herself to an elbow, "I'll jest step downsta'rs and see."
"Delirium," the colonel's wife whispered to herself. Aloud, "No, you mustn't get up! Wait, dear; I'll call him."
Wolfe entered the blue-and-white bedroom a minute later. He went to the bedside and knelt there, took one of the hot and fluttering hands and caressed it awkwardly.
"I'm all right," he told her over and over. "Don't you see? Everything is all right."
She appeared to be satisfied, and accepted a teaspoonful of queer-tasting liquid without a murmur.
But the fever kept going higher in spite of the queer-tasting liquid, and the doctor was summoned again. He gave a powder, left others, and departed. Out in the hallway, Wolfe paced the floor anxiously. On the veranda the colonel sat smoking and swearing under his breath at the forces that had brought themselves together in a mighty attempt to crush him that was as flesh and blood of his own.
Wolfe stopped his nervous pacing at the sound of soft footfalls behind him, turned, and faced his foster-mother.
"I don't think you need worry yourself like this, Arnold; the case isn't so desperate," said Mrs. Mason, half-whispering. She went on smilingly, "If you hadn't told me about Alice, I'd think you were about to fall in love with Tot—or that you'd already fallen in love with her! She's handsome, honey boy, isn't she?"