Less Than The Dust

Aunt Francesca had not come--nor Rose. Perhaps they were dead, also. He asked the nurse one sultry afternoon if they were dead.

"No," she assured him; "nobody is dead."

He wondered, fretfully, why she should take the trouble to lie to him so persistently upon this one point. Then a cunning scheme came into his mind. It presented itself mechanically to him as a trap for the nurse. If they were dead, she could not produce them instantly alive, as a conjurer takes animals from an apparently empty box. If he demanded that she should bring them to him, or even one, it would prove his point and let her see that he knew how she was trying to deceive him.

"Have they gone away?" he inquired.

"No, they're still there."

"Then," said Allison, with the air of one scoring a fine point, "will you ask-well--ask Miss Bernard to come over and see me?"

Remembering the other woman who had come in response to his request, and the disastrous effect the visit had had upon her patient she hesitated. "I'm afraid you're not strong enough," she said kindly. "Can't you wait a little longer?"

"There," he cried. "I knew they were dead!"

As she happened to be both wise and kind, the young woman hesitated no longer. "If I brought you a note from her you would believe me, wouldn't you?"

"No," he replied, stubbornly.

"Isn't there any way you would know, without seeing her?"