Occasionally a new man came to look at his hand; not from the city now,
but from towns farther inland. The examinations were painful, of course,
but he made no objections. After the man had gone, he could count the
slow, distinct pulsations that marked the ebbing of the pain, but never
troubled himself to ask either the doctor or the nurse what the new man
had said about it. He no longer cared.

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