“Yes, I brought it.  The doctor gave it to me; but it is hard to get, and he said you were to have it only on condition that you do everything that we tell you.”

“Oh, I will, I will.”  She reached out her hand eagerly for the package he had taken from his coat pocket; and when Patty looked at her again a curious change had passed over her face, revivifying it with the colour of happiness.  “I have been in such pain—­such pain,” she whispered.  “I was afraid it would come back before you came.  Oh, I was so afraid.”  Then she added hurriedly:  “Is that all?  Did you bring nothing else?”

Though a look of embarrassment crossed his face, he carried off the difficult situation with his characteristic assurance.  “The doctor sent you a little stimulant.  Perhaps I’d better give you a dose now.  It might pick you up.”  Taking a bottle from his pocket, he poured some whiskey into a glass and added a little water from a pitcher on the table.  “There, now,” he remarked, with genuine sympathy as he held the glass to her lips.  “You’ll begin to feel better in a minute.  This young lady can’t stay but a little while, so you’d better try to buck up.”

“I’ll try,” answered the woman obediently.  “I’ll try—­but it isn’t easy to come back out of hell.”  Lifting her head from the pillow, as if it were a dead weight that did not belong to her, she stared at Patty while her tormented mind made an effort to remember.  In a minute her mouth worked pathetically, and she burst into tears.  “I can’t come back now, I can’t come back now,” she repeated in a whimpering tone.  “But I’ll be better before long, and then I want to see you.  There are things I want to tell you when I get the strength.  I can’t think of them now, but they are things about Gideon Vetch.”

“About Father?” asked the girl, and her voice trembled.

The woman stopped crying, and looked up appealingly, while she wiped her eyes on the ragged edge of the blanket.  “Yes, about Gideon Vetch.  That’s his name, ain’t it?”

“I wouldn’t talk any more now, if I were you,” said Gershom, putting his hand gently on her pillow.  “We’ll come again when you’re feeling spryer.”

The woman nodded.  “Yes, come again.  Bring her again.”

“I’ll come whenever you send for me,” said Patty reassuringly; but instead of looking at the woman, she stooped over and touched the calla lily with her lips, as if it were human and could respond to her.  “I want you to tell me about my mother—­everything.  I remember her just once, the night before they took her to the asylum.  She was in spangled skirts that stood out like a ballet dancer’s, and there was a crown of stars on her hair and a star on the end of the wand she carried.  I remember it all just as plainly as if it were yesterday—­though they tell me I was too little—­”

She broke off because the woman was gazing at her so strangely.  “You were too little,” she cried, and burst into hysterical weeping.  “I can’t stand it,” she said wildly.  “I never had a chance, and I can’t stand it.”