A look of gray disappointment crossed Mrs. Robson's face. Mrs. Finnegan's upper lip seemed shaped suddenly with a suspicion that died almost as quickly as it began. There was a ring at the bell. "That's the doctor," said Mrs. Finnegan, and she left to open the door. The doctor chilled Claire with his steely nonchalance as she stood apart while he went through the usual forms of a professional visit that was obviously futile. She followed him to the front door. He answered her eager inquiries with the cold triumph of authority. "How long will she last?... Well, Miss Robson, that is hard to say. She might go off to-night. Then, again, she might live twenty years. She'll scarcely get any better, though. No, a nurse isn't essential, unless you can afford one. But you ought to have another woman about. If you have any relatives you'd better send for them and let them help out." Claire did not find the doctor's announcement that her mother might die at once nearly so brutal as his assurance that she had an equal chance for existing twenty years. _Twenty years!_ Claire closed the door and sank upon the steps overwhelmed. But there was scant leisure on this first dreadful day of Mrs. Robson's illness for theatrical exuberances. Claire, unaccustomed to the routine of household duties, took a thousand unnecessary steps. She tried to work calmly, to bring an acquired philosophy to her tasks, but she went through her paces with a feverish, though stolid, anxiety. The long night which followed was inconceivably a thing of horror. Her wakeful moments were dry-eyed with despair, and when she slept it was only to come back to a shivering consciousness. Mrs. Finnegan found her next morning fresh from an attempt to rouse her mother into accepting a few swallows of milk, which had ended in pathetic and miserable failure. She had thrown herself in an abandon of grief across the narrow kitchen table, and the coffee from an overturned cup was trickling in a warm, thick stream to the floor. But the paroxysm did her good. She rose to the kindly caresses of her neighbor like a flower beaten to earth but refreshed by a relentless torrent. After this, custom and habit began to reassert themselves in spite of the crushing weight of circumstance. She 'phoned to the office. Mr. Flint had returned, they told her. She explained her trouble to the cashier. "I'll try to be back the first of the week," she finished, in a burst of illogical hope. Later in the day Mrs. Robson's two sisters arrived in answer to Claire's summons. Claire's impulse to send for them had been purely instinctive--an atrophied survival of clan-spirit that persisted beyond any real faith in its significance. Perhaps she had a feeling that her mother wished it; certainly she had no illusions as to the manner in which the unwelcome news of Mrs. Robson's illness would be received by these two self-centered females.