quickly. For
the first time in her life Sheila wished days back; she would have put a
checking hand on time had she had the power. Then just as she was making
up her mind that her fear was for nothing, that her plans had gloriously
failed and Pancho was to be hers for all time, the wretched news came.
Peter brought it, hurrying hatless down the street, and Sheila, knowing in
her heart what had happened, went down the steps to meet him.

"Is it a letter--or a wire--or what? And where's the senora?"

"Having hysterics in front of the business office." Peter stopped to get
his breath. "The husband wired from New York--he'll be down on the morning
train. It seems the senora wired him when she first got here that Pancho
was dying, so she didn't see any need of changing it in her letter. She
said she wanted the money for a monument and masses--and he could send it
in a draft. Guess he thought more of the boy than the mother did, for he's
come up to bring the body home and put up the monument down there. Now
she doesn't know what to tell him. Can you beat that for straight
fiction?"

Sheila picked up the atom and disappeared inside without a word. When she
reappeared a few minutes later, the atom was arrayed in his most becoming
romper, his black curls were brushed into an encircling halo, his hands
clapping over some consciousness of pleasurable excitement. Sheila tucked
him into his carriage and faced Peter with a grim look of command. "You're
to play policeman, understand! Walk back of me all the way. If I show any
sign of turning back or running away, arrest me on the spot."

"What are you going to do?"

"What two months ago I thought would be the easiest thing in the
world--and what I wouldn't be doing now for a million dollars if I hadn't
given my word to Father O'Friel and the law wasn't against me."

As Peter had rightfully reported, the senora was having hysterics in front
of the business office, with the business and hospital staff trying their
best to quench her, and as many patients as the lobby would hold watching
in varying degrees of curiosity. Only one of Latin blood could have
achieved a scene of such melodramatic abandon and stamped it as genuine,
but no one present doubted the grief and despair of the senora as she
paced the floor wringing her hands and wailing in her native tongue.
Sheila entered by way of the basement and the lift, and she wheeled the
atom's carriage into the inner circle of the crowd