"She died last week--cholera. My God, I tell you she was dead in six hours! I guess I'll get cholera, too. I can't, though. Can I? I thought I had it two days ago. It hurt me terribly. I can't get it, can I? It never attacks people twice, does it? Oh, say it doesn't and be damned to you. Doctor, what are the symptoms of cholera?" I waited till she had detailed her own attack, assured her that these and no others were the symptoms, and--may this be set to my credit--that cholera never attacked twice. This soothed her for ten minutes. Then she sprang up with an oath and shrieked:-- "I won't be buried in Hong-Kong. That frightens me. When I die--of cholera--take me to 'Frisco and bury me there. In 'Frisco--Lone Mountain 'Frisco--you hear, Doctor?" I heard and promised. Outside the birds were beginning to twitter and the dawn was pencilling the shutters. "I say, Doctor, did you ever know Cora Pearl?" "'Knew _of_ her." I wondered whether she was going to walk round the room to all eternity with her eyes glaring at the ceiling and her hands twisting and untwisting one within the other. "Well," she began, in an impressive whisper, "it was young Duval shot himself on her mat and made a bloody mess there. I mean real bloody. You don't carry a pistol, Doctor? Savile did. You didn't know Savile. He was my husband in the States. But I'm English, pure English. That's what I am. Let's have a bottle of wine, I'm so nervous. Not good for me? What the--No, you're a doctor. You know what's good against cholera. Tell me! Tell me." She crossed to the shutters and stared out, her hand upon the bolt, and the bolt clacked against the wood because of the tremulous hand. "I tell you Corinthian Kate's drunk--full as she can hold. She's always drinking. Did you ever see my shoulder--these two marks on it? They were given me by a man--a gentleman--the night before last. I _didn't_ fall against any furniture. He struck me with his cane twice, the beast, the beast, the beast! If I had been full, I'd have knocked the dust out of him. The beast! But I only went into the verandah and cried fit to break my heart. Oh, the beast!" She paced the room, chafing her shoulder and crooning over it as though it were an animal. Then she swore at the man. Then she fell into a sort of stupor, but moaned and swore at the man in her sleep, and wailed for her _amah_ to come and dress her shoulder. Asleep she was not unlovely, but the mouth twitched and the body was shaken with shiverings, and there was no peace in her at all. Daylight showed her purple-eyed, slack-cheeked, and staring, racked with a headache and the nervous twitches. Indeed I was seeing Life; but it did not amuse me, for I felt that I, though I only made capital of her extreme woe, was guilty equally with the rest of my kind that had brought her here.