but a few moments later her teeth chattered with a chill,
and Miss Wheaton closed the wide windows through which a June breeze was
wandering.

The day dragged on. The doctor came back, talked to Jim and Miss Toland
during luncheon about mushroom-raising, went upstairs to send Miss
Wheaton down to her lunch, and to watch the patient a little while for
himself. Jim went up, too, but was sent down to reassure Mrs. Toland,
who had arrived, and with Miss Sanna was holding a vigil in the pretty
cretonne-hung drawing-room. He was crossing the hall to go upstairs
again, when a sound from above held him rigid and cold. A long low moan
of utter weariness and anguish drifted through the pleasant silence of
the house, died away, and rose again.

Slowly the sense of tragedy deepened about them. Mrs. Toland was white;
Miss Toland's face was streaked with tears. The moaning was almost
incessant now, but Jim in the hall could hear the nurse murmur above it,
and now and then the doctor's voice, short and sharp.

"I wonder if you could come in and give her a little chloroform, Jim?"
said Doctor Lippincott, a pleasant, middle-aged man in a white linen
suit and cap, appearing suddenly in the door of Julia's room. "I think
we can ease her along a little now, and I need Miss Wheaton."

Jim pushed his hair back with a wet hand; cleared his throat.

"Sure. D'you want me to scrub up?" he asked huskily.

"Oh, no--no, my dear boy! Everything's going splendidly." The doctor
beckoned him in, and shut the door. "Now, Mrs. Studdiford," said he,
"we'll be all right here in no time!"

Julia did not answer; she did not open her eyes even when Jim took her
moist hot hand in one of his, and brushed back the lovely tumbled hair
from her wet forehead. She was breathing deep and violently, as if she
had been running. Presently she beat upon the bed with one clenched
fist, and began to toss her head from side to side. Then the stifled
moan began to escape from her bitten lips again, her face worked
pitifully, and she began to cry.

"Now, crowd it on, Jim!" Doctor Lippincott said, nodding toward the
chloroform.

"Breathe deep, breathe it in, my darling!" Jim urged, pouring the sweet,
choking stuff upon the little mask he held above the tortured face.

"You aren't--helping me--at all!" Julia muttered, in a deep hoarse
voice. But her shrill thin cry sank to a moan again; she stammered
incoherent words.

So struggling and sobbing, now quieter under t