“I’m afraid it’s ptomaine.

“What does that mean?” Joe fiercely inquired.  But before Ethel could hear the reply she was called back into the bedroom, where on her bed with both hands clenched Amy was saying: 

“I can’t bear this!  Make him give me something—­quick!”

The rest of the night was a blur and a haze, of which Joe was the centre—­Joe half crazed and impatient, making impossible demands.

“You can’t get a nurse in a minute, my friend, at five A. M.,” the doctor cried.  “I’m doing my best, if you’ll give me a chance!”

The fight went on.  The nurse arrived, and turning to Ethel the doctor said, “Get him out of this.”  And she took Joe into the living-room.  But there with a sudden curse and a groan he began to walk the floor.

“This doctor—­what do we know of him?  He was all I could find!  We haven’t been to a doctor in years! . . .  Ah—­that’s it!” And he went to the telephone, where in a few moments she heard him saying tensely, “Bill, old man, I’m in trouble.”  And she thought, “It’s his partner.”

“What have you done?” she asked him.

“Got Bill Nourse on the ’phone.  He’s bringing another doctor.”

“But Joe!  You should have asked this one first!”

“Should I?” was his distracted reply.

The second physician soon arrived, and was as surprised and annoyed as the first one when he found how he had been summoned.  In a moment with angry apologies he was backing out of the door.  But Joe caught his arm.

“You two and your etiquette be damned!  Go in and look at that woman!” he cried.  And with a glance into Joe’s eyes, the second doctor turned to the first, muttered, “Hold this man.  He’s crazy “—­and went into the bedroom.

It was long before Ethel forgot the look that appeared on Joe’s face when the second physician came out and said: 

“I’m sorry.  There’s nothing I can do.”

She went in with Joe to Amy.  And her sister looked so relieved, the lines of pain all smoothed away.  Heavily drugged, she was nearly asleep.  Her hand felt for Joe’s and closed on it, and with a little nestling movement of her soft lovely body she murmured smiling: 

“Oh, so tired and sleepy now.”

Again, in spite of her grief and fright, Ethel noticed how her sister’s hand closed on that of her husband.  In the months and years that followed, she recalled it vividly so many times.

Joe sat there long after Amy was dead.

The doctor signed to Ethel to come into the living-room.

“Are you to be in charge?” he asked.  She looked at him and shivered.  She felt a pang of such loneliness as she had never known before.

“I know nobody—­nothing—­I don’t know how you arrange,” she said.  “I’ve only been a month in town.”

The doctor gave her a curious look of pity and uneasiness.  It was as though he had told her, “I’m sorry, but don’t count on me for help.  I’m busy.  This is New York, you know.”  He said: