"Copy, sir," yelled the small boy again. "Forms locked in half an
hour."
The man bit his pencil into splinters. The hand he held was growing
cooler; surely her fever must be leaving. She was singing now, a
little crooning song she might have learned at her mother's knee, and
her fingers had ceased moving.
"They told me," she said weakly and sadly, "that hardships and
suffering would come upon me for disobeying my parents and marrying
Jack. Oh, dear, my head aches so I can't think. No, no, the white
dress with the lace sleeves, not that black, dreadful thing! Sailing,
sailing, sailing, where does this river go? You are not Jack, you are
too cold and stern. What is that red mark on your brow? Come, sister,
let's make some daisy chains and then hurry home, there is a great
black cloud above us--I'll be better in the morning. Jack, if you'll
hold my hand tight. Jack, I feel as light as a feather--I'm just
floating, floating, right into the cloud and I can't feel your hand.
Oh, I see her now, and there is the old love and tenderness in her
face. I must go to her. Jack. Mother, mother!"
The man wrote quickly:
"A woman generally likes her husband's mother-in-law the best of all
his relatives."
Then he sprang to the door, dashed the column of copy into the boy's
hand, and moved swiftly to the bed.
He put his arm softly under the brown head that had suffered so much,
but it turned heavily aside.
The fever was gone. The humourist was alone.