But before she could reply the doctor interrupted. "No, I don't know what it is. His pulse seems all right and he has no fever." And the little man fell to wagging his head, in the manner of a physician who was always secretly doubtful of his own opinion. "To-morrow I'll fetch another doctor. We'll have to have a consultation."
After that he packed his bag, wrapped himself up to the throat and bidding them good night in a mournful, bedside whisper, as if (thought Hattie sourly) Gramp had been an adored child cut off in the bloom of youth, made his way down the creaking stairs.
When he had gone, Mrs. Tolliver turned abruptly and said again, "You could have made it if Gramp hadn't thrown this fit. And now she's gone. . . ."
In the shadows that covered the vast bed, Gramp Tolliver's body lay stiff as a poker thrust beneath the sheets. But presently in the midst of the hushed talk that went on by his side, one eye opened slowly and surveyed the scene. For an instant there rose in the still cold air the echo—it could not have been more than that—of a far-off demoniacal chuckle. At the sound Mrs. Tolliver turned and approached the bed.
"He laughed," she said to her husband. "I'm sure of it . . ." and she shook the old man gently without gaining the faintest suspicion of a response. He lay rigid and still. At last she turned away.
"Go," she said, "and take the next train. You might catch them at Pittsburgh. If you haven't enough money there's some tied in a handkerchief under the mattress."
"But you. . . . What'll you do?"
"Never mind me . . . I'll sit here in the rocker and keep watch. . . ."
And until the gray winter dawn crept in at the windows she sat there, awake, with one eye on the old man, for the echo of that wicked chuckle had awakened in her mind the most amazing suspicions. In the single moment that she had stood listening to the sound of the catastrophe overhead, Ellen had made her escape.
