The gray twilight settled early, and Mariposa, dropping the curtain, turned to the room behind her. The light of a small fire and a shaded lamp sent a softened glow over the apartment, which, despite its poverty, bespoke the taste of gentlewomen in the simple prettiness of its furnishings. The nurse, a middle-aged woman of a kindly and capable aspect, sat by the fire in a wicker rocking-chair, reading a paper. Beside her, on a table, stood the sick-room paraphernalia of glasses and bottles. The regular creak of the rocking-chair, and an occasional snap from the fire, were the only sounds that punctuated the steady drumming of the rain on the tin roof. A Japanese screen was half-way about the bed, shutting it from the drafts of the door, and in its shelter Lucy lay sleeping her light, breathless sleep. In this shaded light, in the relaxed attitude of unconsciousness, she presented the appearance of a young girl hardly older than her daughter. Yet the hand of death was plainly on her, as even Mariposa could now see. Without sound the girl passed from the room to her own beyond. Her grief had seized her, and the truth, fought against with the desperate inexperience of youth, forced itself on her. She threw herself on her bed and lay there battling with the sickness of despair that such knowledge brings. Twilight faded and darkness came. In answer to the servant’s tap on the door, and announcement of dinner, she called back that she desired none. The room was as dark about her as her own thoughts. From the door that led into the sick chamber, only partly closed, a shaft of light cut the blackness, and on this light she fastened her eyes, swollen with tears, feeling herself stupefied with sorrow. As she lay thus on the bed, she heard the creaking of the wicker-chair as the nurse arose, then came the clink of the spoon and the glass, and the woman’s low voice, and then her mother’s, stronger and clearer than it had been for some days. There was an interchange of remarks between nurse and patient, the sound of careful steps, and the crack of light suddenly expanded as the door was opened. Against this background, clear and smoothly yellow as gold leaf, the nurse’s figure was revealed in sharp silhouette. “Are you there, Miss Moreau?” she said in a low voice. Mariposa started with a hurried reply. “Well, your mother wants to see you and you’d better come. Her mind seems much clearer and it may not be so again.” The girl rose from the bed trying to compose her face. In the light of the open door the woman saw its distress and looked at her pityingly. “Don’t tire her,” she said, “but I advise you to say all you have to say. She may not be this way again.” Mariposa crossed the room to the bed. Her mother was lying on her side, pinched, pale and with darkly circled eyes. “Have you just waked up, darling?” said the girl, tenderly.