For a long time he stood there, rigid with fear, not knowing what to do. He knew no one in all the city upon whom he could call save Mrs. Joyce and Leo, and he did not know their street or number. He felt himself utterly alone, helpless, ignorant as a babe, and in the presence of death.
Gradually his brain cleared. Sorrow overcame his instinctive awe of a dead body. He felt once more the pulseless arm and studied closely the rigid face. "She is gone!" he sobbingly cried, "and I was so cruel to her last night!"
The memory of his harsh voice, his brutal words, came back to plague him, now that she was deaf to his remorse. How little, how gentle she was, and how self-sacrificing she had been for him! "She burned out her very soul for me," he acknowledged.
He remained beside her thus till the sound of a crying babe on the floor below suggested to him the presence of neighbors. Hastening down-stairs, he knocked upon the first door he came to with frantic insistence.
A slatternly young woman with a crown of flaming red-gold hair came to the door. She smiled in greeting, but his first words startled her.
"My mother is dead. Come up and help me. I don't know what to do."
His tone carried conviction, and the girl did not hesitate a moment. She turned and called: "Father, come here quick. Mrs. Ollnee is dead."
An old man with weak eyes and a loose-hung mouth shuffled forward. To him the girl explained: "This is Mrs. Ollnee's son. He says his mother is dead. I'm going up there. You look out for the baby." She turned back to Victor. "When did she die?"
"I found her cold and still this morning."
A boy's voice answered, "What ye want, maw?"
"Jimmie, you hustle into your clothes and run down the street to Doctor Sill's office and tell him to come up here right away. Hurry now!"
Closing the door behind her, she started resolutely up the stairway, and her action gave Victor a grateful sense of relief.
"What do you think ailed her?" she asked.
"I don't know. She seemed all right last night when I went to bed."
This woman, young in years, was old in experience, that was evident, for she proceeded unhesitatingly to the silent bedside with that courage to meet death which seems native to all women. She, too, listened and felt for signs of life and found none. "I reckon you're right," she said, quietly. "She's cold as a stone."