you and to myself, before you see her. Whatever my personal ideas may be of what has taken place here, my professional duty as a nurse demanded that I send for a doctor at once, and I want you to know that is what I did, though I have not been successful in getting one. There is no doctor here, so I telegraphed; but the doctor at Barton's Mills is away."
"Yes," said Helena mechanically.
"I just wanted you to understand," said Miss Harvey. "Will you come and see Mrs. Thornton now?"
"Does she know," whispered Helena, as she followed the nurse down the corridor of the car, "does she know that—how ill she is?"
"Yes," Miss Harvey answered simply. She stopped before a compartment door, opened it softly, and, stepping aside, motioned Helena to enter.
A little cry rose to Helena's lips that she choked back somehow, and a mist for a moment blinded her eyes—then she was kneeling beside the brass bed, and was holding in both her own the hand that was stretched out to her.
"Helena—dear—I am so glad you came," said Mrs. Thornton faintly. "I—I am not going to get better, and there are some things I want to say to you."
"Oh, but you are," returned Helena quickly, smiling bravely now. "You mustn't say that."
Mrs. Thornton shook her head.
"Dear," she said, "I know. And I know that
