He bled incredibly. It was unbelievable that an old cancer-riddled spectre of a man should have so much blood in him. One has often heard the phrase “bled white,” and that is literally what happened to him. Some liquid still came from him, but it was almost colourless, like water. There was no more blood left in him. And even then he did not die. Instead, as if to compensate him for all these years of agony and mortal terror, this bitter clutch on life so desperately relinquished, there came now a period of almost total peace and clarity. And Helen, grasping hope fiercely from that unaccustomed tranquillity, tried to hearten him and herself with futile words; she even seized him by his shoulders and shook him a little, saying:

“Why, you’re all right! You’re going to be all right now! The worst is over — you’ll get well now! Don’t you know it?”

And Gant covered her fingers with his own great hand and, smiling a little and shaking his head, looked at her, saying in a low and gentle voice:

“Oh, no, baby. I’m dying. It’s all right now.”

And in her heart she knew at last that she was beaten; yet she would not give up. The final stop of that horrible flow of blood which had continued unabated for a day, the unaccustomed tranquil clarity of Gant’s voice and mind, awakened in her again all the old unreasoning hopefulness of her nature, its desperate refusal to accept the ultimate.

“Oh,” she said that night to Eliza, shaking her head with a strong movement of negation —“you can’t tell me! Papa’s not going to die yet! He’ll pull through this just like he’s pulled through all those other spells. Why, his mind is as clear and sound as a bell! He knows everything that’s going on around him! He hasn’t talked in years as he talked to me tonight — he was more like his old self than he’s been since he took sick.”

“Why, yes,” Eliza answered instantly, eagerly catching up the drift of her daughter’s talk, and pursuing it with the web-like, invincibly optimistic hopefulness of her own nature.

“Why, yes,” she went on, pursing her lips reflectively and speaking in a persuasive manner. “And, see here, now! — Say! — Why, you know, I got to studyin’ it over tonight and it’s just occurred to me — now I’ll tell you what MY theory is! I believe that that old growth — that awful old thing — that — well, I suppose, now, you might say — that CANCER,” she said, making a gesture of explanation with her broad hand —“whatever it is, that awful old thing that has been eating away inside him there for years —” here she pursed her lips powerfully and shook her head in a short convulsive tremor of disgust —“well, now, I give it as my theory that the whole thing tore loose in him yesterday — when he had that attack — and,” she paused deliberately, looked her daughter straight in the eyes, and went on with a slow and telling force —“and that he has simply gone and got that rotten old thing out of his system.”

“Then, you mean —” Helen began eagerly, seizing at this fantastic straw as if it were the rock by which her drowning hope might be saved —“you mean, Mama —”

“Yes, sir!” said Eliza, shaking her head slowly and positively. “That’s exactly what I mean! I think nature has taken its own course — I think nature has succeeded in doing what all the doctors and hospitals in the world were not able to do — for you can rest assured”— and here she paused, looking her daughter gravely in the eyes —“you can rest assured that nature is the best physician in the end! Now, I’ve always said as much, and all the best authorities agree with me. Why, yes, now! — here! — say! — wasn’t I readin’ in the paper — oh! here along, you know a week or so ago — Doctor Royal S. Copeland! — yes, sir! — that was the very feller — why, he said, you know —” she went on in explanatory fashion.

“Oh, but, Mama!” Helen said, desperately, unable to make her mind believe this grotesque reasoning, and yet clutching at every word with a pleading entreaty that begged to be convinced.

“Oh, but, Mama, surely Wade Eliot and all those other men at Hopkins couldn’t have been wrong! Why, Mama,” she cried furiously, yet pleadingly —“you know they couldn’t — after all these years — after taking him there for treatment a dozen times or more! Why, Mama, those men are FAMOUS— the greatest doctors in the world! Oh, surely not! Surely not!” she said desperately, and then gazed at Eliza pleadingly again.

“H’m!” said Eliza, pursing her lips with a little s............