Page:Frank Packard - The White Moll.djvu/34

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32
THE WHITE MOLL

measure to stimulants, had regained consciousness. She insisted on clinging to Rhoda Gray's hand as they carried in the stretcher.

"Don't leave me!" she pleaded. And then, for the first time, Gypsy Nan's nerve seemed to fail her. "I—oh, my God—I—I don't want to die!" she cried out.

But a moment later, inside the hospital, as the admitting officer began to ask questions of Rhoda Gray, Gypsy Nan had apparently recovered her grip upon herself.

"Ah, let her alone!" she broke in. "She doesn't know me any more than you do. She found me on the street. But she was good to me, God bless her!"

"Your name's Charlotte Green? Yes?" The man nodded. "Where do you live?"

"Wherever I like!" Gypsy Nan was snarling truculently now. "What's it matter where I live? Don't you ever have any one come here without a letter from the pastor of her church!" She pulled out the package of banknotes. "You aren't going to get stuck. This'll see you through whatever happens. Give me a—a private room, and"—her voice was weakening rapidly—"and"—there came a bitter, facetious laugh—"the best you've got." Her voice was weakening rapidly.

They carried her upstairs. She still insisted on clinging to Rhoda Gray's hand.

"Don't leave me!" she pleaded again, as they reached the door of a private room, and Rhoda Gray disengaged her hand gently.

"I'll stay outside here," Rhoda Gray promised. "I won't go away without seeing you again."

Rhoda Gray sat down on a settee in the hall. She glanced at her wrist watch. It was five minutes of