"She's quiet now," he said: "the hemorrhage is checked. I took a sample of her blood. I'll make a blood test to-morrow morning. How long has this been going on--this cough?" A good long time, Marie told him--several months. She went on, in her broken English, to explain: "We thought it was but a bad cold, that soon she would be well----" He broke in on her impatiently: "That's what you said before. That's no excuse." He looked about him. "How many are there of you living here--just you two?" "We are quite alone," she told him. "We had also a brother, but--but he now is dead." It did not occur to her to tell him how the brother had died, or when. "What's your business?" he demanded. Then as she seemed not to get his intent, he added: "Can't you understand plain English? What do you do for a living?" "Your pardon, doctor; I am a milliner." "And this other girl--your sister--she's been staying at home and doing the housekeeping, you said?" She nodded. For a moment there was silence, she still seated, he before her balancing himself on the longer leg of the two and on his heavy cane. "I'll make a blood test in the morning," he said at length, repeating what he had said a moment before. "Doctor," said Marie, "tell me, please, the truth. My sister--is she then so ill?" "Ill?" he burst out at her irritably. "Ill? I should say she is ill. She's got tuberculosis, if you know what that means--consumption." She sucked her breath in sharply. Her next question came slowly: "What is there then to do?" "Well, she couldn't last long here--that's dead certain. You've got to get her away from here. You've got to get her up into the North Woods, in the mountains--Saranac or some place like that--in a sanitarium or an invalids' camp where she can have the right kind of treatment. Then she'll have a chance." By a chance he meant that with proper care the sick girl might live for three months or for four, or at the outside for six. The case was as good as hopeless now; he knew that. Still his duty was to see that his patients' lives were prolonged--if possible. "These mountains, I do not know them. We are strangers in this country." "I'll find out about a place where you can get her in," he volunteered. "I'll bring you the information in the morning--names and addresses and everything. Somebody'll have to go up there with her--you, I guess--and get her settled. She's in no shape to be travelling alone. Then you can leave her there and arrange to send up so much a week to pay for her keep and the treatment and all. Oh, yes--and until we get her away from here you'll have to lay off from your work and stay with her, or else hire somebody to stay with her. She mustn't be left alone for long at a time--she's too sick for that. Something might happen. Understand?" "And all this--it will cost much money perhaps?"