curious mockery in the weak voice. "You think I've drunk myself
into this state. You think I'm on the verge of the D.T.'s now.
That empty bottle under the bed proves it, doesn't it? And anybody
around here will tell you that Gypsy Nan has thrown enough empties
out of the window there to stock a bottle factory for years, some
of them on the flat roof just outside the window, some of them on
the roof of the shed below, and some of them down into the yard,
just depending on how drunk she was and how far she could throw.
And that proves it, too, doesn't it? Well, maybe it does, that's
what I did it for; but I never touched the stuff, not a drop of it,
from the day I came here. I didn't dare touch it. I had to keep
my wits. Last night you thought I was drunk when you found me in
the doorway downstairs. I wasn't. I was too sick and weak to get
up here. I almost told you then, only I was afraid, and - and I
thought that perhaps I'd be all right to-day."

"Oh, I didn't know!" Rhoda Gray was on her knees beside the bed.
There was no room to question the truth of the woman's words, it
was in Gypsy Nan's eyes, in the struggling, labored voice.

"Yes." Gypsy Nan clutched at the shawl around her neck, and
shivered. "I thought I might be all right to-day, and that I'd
get better. But I didn't. And now I've got about a chance in a
hundred. I know. It's my heart."

"You mean you've been alone here, sick, since last night?" There
was anxiety, perplexity, in Rhoda Gray's face. "Why didn't you
call some one? Why did you even hold me back a few minutes ago,
when you admit yourself that you need immediate medical assistance
so badly?"