She looked at me steadily for a long minute, then spoke huskily—­I was surprised at the strength of her voice.

“Of course I have no right to ask anything of you, Mrs. Graham,” she said, “but death, you know, always has privileges, and I am going to die.”

I saw the nurse glance swiftly, sharply, at her, and then go quietly out of the room.

“She’s hurrying to get the doctor,” the girl said, with the uncanny intuition of the very sick, “but he can’t do me any good.  I’m going to die and I know it.  And I want you to promise to stay with me until the end comes.  I shall probably be unconscious, and not know whether you are here or not, but I know you.  You’re the kind that if you give a promise you won’t break it, and I have a sort of feeling that I’d like to go out holding your hand.  Will you promise me that?”

Her eyes looked fiercely, compelling, into mine.  I stepped forward and laid my hand on hers, lying so weak on the bed.

“Of course I promise,” I said pitifully.

There was a quick, savage gleam in her eyes which I could not fathom, a gleam that vanished as quickly as it came.  I told myself that the look I had surprised in her eyes was one of ferocious triumph, and that as my hand touched hers she had instinctively started to draw her hand away from mine, and then yielded it to my grasp.

“All right,” she said indifferently, closing her eyes.  “Remember now, don’t go away.”

“Dicky!  Dicky! what have I done that you are so changed?  How can you be so cold to me when you remember all that we have been to each other?  Don’t be so cruel to me.  Kiss me just once, just once, as you used to do.”

Over and over again the plaintive words pierced the air of the room where Grace Draper lay, while Dr. Pettit and the nurse battled for her life.

The theme of all her delirious cries and mutterings was Dicky.  She lived over again all the homely little humorous incidents of their long studio association.  She went with him upon the little outings which they had taken together, and of which I learned for the first time from her fever-crazed lips.

“Isn’t this delicious salad, Dicky?” she would cry.  “What a magnificent view of the ocean you can get from here?  Wouldn’t Belasco envy that moonlight effect?”

Then more tender memories would obsess her.  To me, crouching in my corner, bound by my promise to stay in the room, it seemed a most cruel irony of fate that I should be compelled to listen to this unfolding of my husband’s faithlessness to me within so short a time of our tender reconciliation.

I do not think Dr. Pettit knew I was in the room when he first entered it, anxious because of his imperative summons by the nurse.  Lillian’s guest room had the alcove characteristic of the old-fashioned New York houses, and she and I were seated in that.

The physician bent over the bed, carefully studying the patient.  Through his professional mask I thought I saw a touch of bewilderment.  He studied the girl’s pulse and temperature, listened to her breathing, then turned to the nurse sharply.