“Why, mother, what’s all this?” she began, in a tone of gentle banter, as she stroked the helpless hands.  “Were you worried?  I’m so sorry!  I asked Miss Munch to let you know.  Didn’t she?...  I went over to Mr. Flint’s to take dictation.  The storm washed out the track.  I tried to make the boat in Mr. Stillman’s car, but we broke down and missed it....  I had to stay all night in Sausalito.”

Mrs. Robson, stirring faintly, attempted to speak.  Claire turned helplessly to Mrs. Finnegan.  “I can’t make out what she is trying to say.”

Mrs. Finnegan bent an attentive ear.  “It’s about Stillman,” she explained.  “Your mother don’t understand why....”

The speaker stopped with significant discretion.  It was plain to Claire that nobody understood, and she felt a dreary futility as she answered both her mother and Mrs. Finnegan with: 

“It’s a long story.  Some other time, when ... when you’re feeling better.”

A look of gray disappointment crossed Mrs. Robson’s face.  Mrs. Finnegan’s upper lip seemed shaped suddenly with a suspicion that died almost as quickly as it began.  There was a ring at the bell.  “That’s the doctor,” said Mrs. Finnegan, and she left to open the door.

The doctor chilled Claire with his steely nonchalance as she stood apart while he went through the usual forms of a professional visit that was obviously futile.  She followed him to the front door.  He answered her eager inquiries with the cold triumph of authority.

“How long will she last?...  Well, Miss Robson, that is hard to say.  She might go off to-night.  Then, again, she might live twenty years.  She’ll scarcely get any better, though.  No, a nurse isn’t essential, unless you can afford one.  But you ought to have another woman about.  If you have any relatives you’d better send for them and let them help out.”

Claire did not find the doctor’s announcement that her mother might die at once nearly so brutal as his assurance that she had an equal chance for existing twenty years. Twenty years! Claire closed the door and sank upon the steps overwhelmed.

But there was scant leisure on this first dreadful day of Mrs. Robson’s illness for theatrical exuberances.  Claire, unaccustomed to the routine of household duties, took a thousand unnecessary steps.  She tried to work calmly, to bring an acquired philosophy to her tasks, but she went through her paces with a feverish, though stolid, anxiety.  The long night which followed was inconceivably a thing of horror.  Her wakeful moments were dry-eyed with despair, and when she slept it was only to come back to a shivering consciousness.