. It was a fighting face. A
desperate face.

"Look here," she began, and was surprised to find that she was only
whispering. She wet her lips and smiled, and tried again, forming the
words carefully with her lips. "Look here. She's dying--isn't she? Isn't
she! She's dying, isn't she?"

Doctor Hertz pursed his lips. The nurse came over to her, and put a hand
on her shoulder. Fanny shook her off.

"Answer me. I've got a right to know. Look at this!" She reached forward
and picked up that inert, cold, strangely shriveled blue hand again.

"My dear child--I'm afraid so."

There came from Fanny's throat a moan that began high, and poignant, and
quavering, and ended in a shiver that seemed to die in her heart. The
room was still again, except for the breathing, and even that was less
raucous.

Fanny stared at the woman on the bed--at the long, finely-shaped head,
with the black hair wadded up so carelessly now; at the long, straight,
clever nose; the full, generous mouth. There flooded her whole being a
great, blinding rage. What had she had of life? she demanded fiercely.
What? What? Her teeth came together grindingly. She breathed heavily
through her nostrils, as if she had been running. And suddenly she began
to pray, not with the sounding, unctions thees and thous of the Church
and Bible; not elegantly or eloquently, with well-rounded phrases, as
the righteous pray, but threateningly, hoarsely, as a desperate woman
prays. It was not a prayer so much as a cry of defiance---a challenge.

"Look here, God!" and there was nothing profane as she said it. "Look
here, God! She's done her part. It's up to You now. Don't You let her
die! Look at her. Look at her!" She choked and shook herself angrily,
and went on. "Is that fair? That's a rotten trick to play on a woman
that gave what she gave! What did she ever have of life? Nothing! That
little miserable, dirty store, and those little miserable, dirty people.
You give her a chance, d'You hear? You give her a chance, God, or
I'll----"

Her voice broke in a thin, cracked quaver. The nurse turned her around,
suddenly and sharply, and led her from the room.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"You can come down now. They're all here, I guess. Doctor Thalmann's
going to begin." Fanny, huddled in a chair in her bedroom, looked up
into the plump, kindly face of the woman who was bending over her.
Then she stood up, docilely, and walked toward the stairs with a heavy,
stumbling step.

"I