mall gesture of despair. The cries never ceased.
Maria still prayed. It seemed to her that her father would never
return with the doctor. It seemed to her, in spite of her prayer,
that all hope of relief lay in the doctor, and not in the Lord. It
seemed to her that the doctor must help her mother. At last she heard
wheels, and, in her joy, she spoke in spite of her father's
injunction. "There's the doctor now," said she. "I guess he's
bringing father home with him."

Again her mother's eyes opened with a look of intelligence, again she
spoke in her natural voice. She looked towards the clothes which she
had worn during the day, on a chair. "Put my clothes in the closet,"
said she, but her voice strained terribly on the last word.

Maria flew, and hung up her mother's clothes in the closet just
before her father and the doctor entered the room. As she did so, the
tears came for the first time. She had a ready imagination. She
thought to herself that her mother might never put on those clothes
again. She kissed the folds of her mother's dress passionately, and
emerged from the closet, the tears streaming down her face, all the
muscles of which were convulsed. The doctor, who was a young man,
with a handsome, rather hard face, glanced at her before even looking
at the moaning woman in the bed. He said something in a low tone to
her father, who immediately addressed her.

"Go right into your own room, and stay there until I tell you to come
out, Maria," said he, still in that angry voice, which seemed to have
no reason in it. It was the dumb anger of the race against Fate,
which included and overran individuals in its way, like Juggernaut.

At her father's voice, Maria gave a hysterical sob and fled. A sense
of injury tore her heart, as well as her anxiety. She flung herself
face downward on her bed and wept. After a while she turned over on
her back and looked at the room. Not one little thing in the whole
apartment but served to rack her very soul with the consideration of
her mother's love, which she was perhaps about to lose forever. The
dainty curtains at the windows, the scarf on the dresser, the chintz
cover on a chair--every one her mother had planned. She could not
remember how much her mother had scolded her, only how much she had
loved her. At the moment of death the memory of love reigns
triumphant over all else, but she still felt the dazed sense of
injury that her father should have spoken so to her. She c