"Don't you feel well, Lilly?"

"Of course I feel well, mamma. Why shouldn't I?"

But next day, at her after-school hour of practice, a small discordant
crash broke suddenly in upon "Chaminade's Scarf Dance" and Mrs. Becker's
rhythmic rocking above. Lilly had fainted, with her head in her arms and
face down among the keys.

Followed two weeks that crowded up the little back parlor with anxiety,
the tension of two doctors in consultation, and a sense of hysteria that
was always just a scratch beneath the surface of Mrs. Becker. She would
break suddenly into loud and unexpected fits of crying, crushing her
palms up against her mouth; would waken from a light doze beside the
bed, on the shriek of a nightmare, and have literally to be dragged from
the room. She harassed the doctors with questions that only the course
of the disease could answer.

The crisis came in the watches of the night, Lilly very straight and
very white and light of breathing in the center of her parents' bed, her
glossy hair in a thick plait over each shoulder, her fine white and
developed chest hardly rising.

"O God! help me to live this night! Ben! Ben!"

"Carrie, you're only making yourself sick and not helping the child."

"My baby! My beautiful snow-white baby! The best child that ever lived!
Help me to live this night!"