Nobody thought of him now except herself and his old dog Nell. The dog thought of him, she was sure, for it would sleep beneath his empty bed, and at times sit up, look at it and whine. Then it would come and rest its head upon her as she slept, and she would wake to find it looking at her with a question in its eyes. One night in the darkness it did this, then left her and broke into a joyous whimpering, such as it used to make when its master was going to take it out. She even heard it jumping up as though to paw at him, and wondered dreamily what it could mean. When she woke in the morning she saw the poor beast lying stiff and cold upon the bed that had been Anthony’s, and though she wept over it, her tears were perhaps those of envy rather than of sorrow, for she was sure that it had found Anthony. More and more Barbara threw out her soul towards Anthony. Across the void of Nothingness she sent it travelling, nor did it return with empty hands. Something of Anthony had greeted it, though she could not remember the greeting, had spoken with it, though she could not interpret the words. Of this at least she was sure, she had been near to Anthony. Once she seemed to see him. In the infinite, infinite distance, millions of miles away, the sky opened as it were. There in the opening was Anthony talking with one whom she knew for their daughter, the baby that had died, talking of her. In a minute they were gone, but she had seen them, she was sure that she had seen them, and the knowledge warmed her heart. So there was no error, the Bible was true, more or less; Faith was not built on running water or on sand. Life was not a mere hellish mockery, where tiaras turned to crowns of thorn and joy was but an inch rule by which to measure the alps of human pain. Life was a door, a gateway. The door dreadful, the gate perilous, if you will, but beyond it lay no dream, no empty blackness. Beyond it stretched the Promised Land peopled with the lost who soon would be the found. Barbara’s last illness was rapid. When she began to go she went swiftly. “Can’t you save her?” asked her son of one of the doctors. “The disease has gone too far,” he answered. “Moreover, it is impossible to save one who seeks to die.” “Why does she seek to die?” blurted Anthony, glaring at him. “Perhaps, young gentleman, you are in a better position to answer that question than I am,” replied the doctor, who knew of Anthony’s cruel conduct to his mother and had reproached him with it, not once but on several occasions. “You mean that I have killed her,” said Anthony savagely. “No,” replied the doctor, “she is dying of tuberculosis of the lungs. What were the primary causes which induced that disease I cannot be sure. All I said was that she appears to welcome it, or rather its issue. And I will add this on my own account, that when she does die the world will lose one of the sweetest women that ever walked upon it. Good morning.”