The ‘What Is Liberty’ offered to put up her bail money—but Rhoda’s got plenty of dough herself. For some reason she isn’t accepting bail. It seems like if she’s got to be arrested she wants to have it done thorough. She’s always been crazy about prisoners and jails....” “Ebb-ly ...” hiccoughed Edward. The nurse was beckoning to Banner. The sedate wives and mothers of other patients followed by their scrubbed and creaking children were willingly submitting to authority and leaving the ward. “Say, I must be moving along,” said Banner Hope with alacrity. “What’s that you say? Emily? Oh, Emily’s gone to China. Take care of yourself, Edward, some of your friends’ll be around again some time soon....” Edward was left in such an unrelieved condition of depression that he was on the verge of peace. “Gone to China.... Gone to China.... Gone to China....” his mind chanted to itself to the rhythm of the pulse drumming in his ears. He reminded himself without ceasing that Emily had gone to China. To do so put the finishing touch to his orgy of despair. But all the time he felt certain that his ears had really played him false. All the time a little secret unadmitted factory in his mind was circulating hope by making phrases with similar vowel sounds. “He must have said, ‘Emily’s doing fine,’ or he must have said, ‘Emily’s reading Heine,’ or he must have said, ‘Emily—how do _I_ know?’” The rhymes became less and less probable as Edward approached sleep. “Penny-a-liner.... Asia Minor.... Clementina.... Norah Criner....” But gone to China seemed the most absurd of all.