“She’s bleeding again,” muttered the old woman.  “You’d better find the doctor.  I ain’t used to stopping hemorrhages.”  Then, as Corinna went out of the room, she added querulously to Patty:  “She didn’t have no business trying to talk; but she would do it.  She said she’d do it if it killed her—­and I reckon she don’t mind much if it does—­She’d have killed herself sooner than this if I’d let her alone.”  From the street below there came the sound of a motor horn; then the noise of a car running against the curbstone; and then the opening and shutting of a door, followed by rapid footsteps on the stairs.

“That’s the doctor now, I reckon,” remarked the old woman; but the words had scarcely left her lips when the door opened, and Corinna came back into the room with Gideon Vetch.

“Where is Patty?” he asked anxiously.  “She oughtn’t to be here.”

“Yes, I ought to be here,” answered Patty.  As she turned toward Gideon Vetch, she swayed as if she were going to fall, and he caught her in his arms.  “Go home, daughter,” he said almost sternly.  “You oughtn’t to be here.  Mrs. Page, can’t you make her go home?”

“I have tried,” responded Corinna; then a moan from the bed reached her, and she turned toward the woman who lay there.  To die like that with nobody caring, with nobody even observing it!  Exhausted by the loss of blood, the woman had fallen back into unconsciousness, and the towel the old cripple held to her lips was stained scarlet.

“The doctor had gone to bed.  He will come as soon as he gets dressed,” said Corinna.  “He warned us to keep her quiet.”

“If he don’t hurry, she’ll be gone before he gets here,” replied the old woman, looking round over her twisted shoulder.

“Oh, Father, Father!” cried Patty, flinging her arms about his neck; and then over again like a frightened child, “Father, Father!”

He patted her head with a large consoling hand.  “There, there, daughter,” he returned gently.  “A little thing like that won’t come between you and me.”

With his arm still about her, he drew her slowly to the bedside, and stood looking down on the dying woman and the old cripple, who hovered over her with the stained towel in her hand.

“I don’t even know her name,” he said, and immediately afterward, “She must have had a hell of a life!” Though there was a wholesome pity in his voice, it was without the weakness of sentimentality.  He had done what he could, and he was not the kind to worry over events which he could not change.  For a few minutes he stood there in silence; then, because it was impossible for his energetic nature to remain inactive in an emergency, he exclaimed suddenly, “The doctor ought to be here!” and turning away from the bed, went rapidly across the room and through the half open door into the hall.