第7章 II SEVEN--THREE--NINE(3)

"I - I can't go much farther," she faltered. "But - but it doesn't matter now we're out of the house - it doesn't matter where you find me - only let's try a few steps more."

Rhoda Gray had slipped the flashlight inside her blouse.

"Yes," she said. Her breath was coming heavily. "It's all right, Nan. I understand."

They walked on a little way up the block, and then Gypsy Nan's grasp suddenly tightened on Rhoda Gray's arm.

"Play the game!" Gypsy Nan's voice was scarcely audible. "You'll play the game, won't you? You'll - you'll see me through. That's a good name - as good as any - Charlotte Green - that's all you know - but - but don't leave me alone with them - you - you'll come to the hospital with me, won't you - I -"

Gypsy Nan had collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk.

Rhoda Gray glanced swiftly around her. In the squalid tenement before which she stood there would be no help of the kind that was needed. There would be no telephone in there by means of which she could summon an ambulance. And then her glance rested on a figure far up the block under a street lamp - a policeman. She bent hurriedly over the prostrate woman, whispered a word of encouragement, and ran in the officer's direction.

As she drew closer to the policeman, she called out to him. He turned and came running toward, and, as he reached her, after a sharp glance into her face, touched his helmet respectfully.

"What's wrong with the White Moll to-night?" he asked pleasantly.

"There's - there's a woman down there" - Rhoda Gray was breathless from her run - "on the sidewalk. She needs help at once."

"Drunk?" inquired the officer laconically.

"No, I'm sure it's anything but that," Rhoda Gray answered quickly.

"She appears to be very sick. I think you had better summon an ambulance without delay."

"All right!" agreed the officer. "There's a patrol box down there in the direction you came from. We'll have a look at her on the way." He started briskly forward with Rhoda Gray beside him. "Who is she d'ye know?" he asked.

"She said her name was Charlotte Green," Rhoda Gray replied.

"That's all she could, or would, say about herself."

"Then she ain't a regular around here, or I guess you'd know her!" grunted the policeman.

Rhoda Gray made no answer.

They reached Gypsy Nan. The officer bent over her, then picked her up and carried her to the tenement doorway.

"I guess you're right, all right! She's bad! I'll send in a call," he said, and started on the run down the street.

Gypsy Nan had lost consciousness. Rhoda Gray settled herself on the doorstep, supporting the woman's head in her lap. Her face had set again in grim, hard, perplexed lines. There seemed something unnatural, something menacingly weird, something even uncanny about it all. Perhaps it was because it seemed as though she could so surely foresee the end. Gypsy Nan would not live through the night.

Something told her that. The woman's masquerade, for whatever purpose it had been assumed, was over. "You'll play the game, won't you? You'll see me through?" There seemed something pitifully futile in those words now!

The officer returned.

"It's all right," he said. "How's she seem?"

Rhoda Gray shook her head.

A passer-by stopped, asked what was the matter - and lingered curiously. Another, and another, did the same. A little crowd collected. The officer kept them back. Came then the strident clang of a gong and the rapid beat of horses' hoofs. A white-coated figure jumped from the ambulance, pushed his way forward, and bent over the form in Rhoda Gray's lap. A moment more, and they were carrying Gypsy Nan to the ambulance.

Rhoda Gray spoke to the officer:

"I think perhaps I had better go with her."

"Sure!" said the officer.

She caught snatches of the officer's words, as he made a report to the doctor:

Found her here in the street...Charlotte Green...nothing else...the White Moll, straight as God makes 'em...she'll see the woman through."

He turned to Rhoda Gray. "You can get in there with them, miss."

It took possibly ten minutes to reach the hospital, but, before that time, Gypsy Nan, responding in a measure to stimulants, had regained consciousness. She insisted on clinging to Rhoda Gray's hand as they carried in the stretcher.

"Don't leave me!" she pleaded. And then, for the first time, Gypsy Nan's nerve seemed to fail her. "I - oh, my God - I - I don't want to die!" she cried out.

But a moment later, inside the hospital, as the admitting officer began to ask questions of Rhoda Gray, Gypsy Nan had apparently recovered her grip upon herself.

"Ah, let her alone!" she broke in. "She doesn't know me any more than you do. She found me on the street. But she was good to me, God bless her!"

"Your name's Charlotte Green? Yes?" The man nodded. "Where do you live?"

"Wherever I like!" Gypsy Nan was snarling truculently now. "What's it matter where I live? Don't you ever have any one come here without a letter from the pastor of her church!" She pulled out the package of banknotes. "You aren't going to get stuck. This'll see you through whatever happens. Give me a - a private room, and" - her voice was weakening rapidly - "and" - there came a bitter, facetious laugh -" the best you've got." Her voice was weakening rapidly.

They carried her upstairs. She still insisted on clinging to Rhoda Gray's hand.

"Don't leave me!" she pleaded again, as they reached the door of a private room, and Rhoda Gray disengaged her hand gently.

"I'll stay outside here," Rhoda Gray promised. "I won't go away without seeing you again.

Rhoda Gray sat down on a settee in the hall. She glanced at her wrist watch. It was five minutes of eleven. Doctors and nurses came and went from the room. Then a great quiet seemed to settle down around her. A half hour passed. A doctor went into the room, and presently came out again. She intercepted him as he came along the corridor.

He shook his head.