pillows on the bed frightened me, and my feet refused to move. All
the hardships and denials, the injustices and inequalities, of
working womanhood, unfit to fight and unprepared for struggle, were
staring at me, and on the open lips was something of the mocking
smile that had been on Lillie Pierce's face when she was first
brought in to Mrs. Mundy.

Heavily, and with great labor, breath came gaspingly, and the blank
stare in the eyes made me think at first I was too late. Slowly I
went toward the bed, and at its side I took a twitching hand in mine,
and as I did so the staring eyes turned to me. Too nearly gone for
aught save faint returning, light struggled back in a supreme and
final effort, and with life's last spark of energy she clutched my
fingers with her work-worn, weary hands. Miss White, the district
nurse, who was standing at the foot of the bed, nodded to me, and
from a far corner the sobbing of a man and woman in shabby clothes,
and crouched close together, reached across the room. All other
worlds were, for the moment, far away, and only the world before me
seemed real and true and unescapable.

Drawing a low chair close to the bed, I sat down and leaned toward
the woman. There was little time to lose. "What is it, Mrs. Cotter?
Look at me. This is Dandridge Heath. You have something you want to
say to me. Tell me what it is."

Her head made backward, twisting movement as if for breath, then her
eyes held mine, and in them was the cry eternal of all motherhood.
"My little girl! My little girl! If only--I could take--her with
me! Who's going to--tell her how--not to go--wrong? She won't be
safe--on earth. Promise me--promise me!"