“About all in!” he said.  “Heart’s gone—­too much booze probably.  I’d stay, but there’s nothing to do.”

“Would oxygen——­”

“Oh, you can try it if you like.  It’s like blowing up a leaking tire; but if you’ll feel better, do it.”  He yawned and tied the cord of his bathrobe round him more securely.  “I guess you’ll be glad to get back,” he observed, looking round the dingy hall.  “This place always gives me a chill.  Well, let me know if you want me.  Good night.”

The Nurse stood in the hallway until the echo of his slippers on the asphalt had died away.  Then she turned to Billy Grant.

“Well?” demanded Billy Grant.  “How long have I?  Until morning?”

“If you would only not talk and excite yourself——­”

“Hell!” said Billy Grant, we regret to record.  “I’ve got to do all the talking I’m going to do right now.  I beg your pardon—­I didn’t intend to swear.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” said the Nurse vaguely.  This was like no deathbed she had ever seen, and it was disconcerting.

“Shall I read again?”

“No, thank you.”

The Nurse looked at her watch, which had been graduation present from her mother and which said, inside the case:  “To my little girl!” There is no question but that, when the Nurse’s mother gave that inscription to the jeweller, she was thinking of the day when the Staff Doctor had brought the Nurse in his leather bag, and had slapped her between the shoulders to make her breathe.  “To my little girl!” said the watch; and across from that—­“Three o’clock.”

At half-past three Billy Grant, having matured his plans, remarked that if it would ease the Nurse any he’d see a preacher.  His voice was weaker again and broken.

“Not”—­he said, struggling—­“not that I think—­he’ll pass me.  But—­if you say so—­I’ll—­take a chance.”

All of which was diabolical cunning; for when, as the result of a telephone conversation, the minister came, an unworldly man who counted the world, an automobile, a vested choir and a silver communion service well lost for the sake of a dozen derelicts in a slum mission house, Billy Grant sent the Nurse out to prepare a broth he could no longer swallow, and proceeded to cajole the man of God.  This he did by urging the need of the Nurse’s small brother for an education and by forgetting to mention either the Lindley Grants or the extent of his property.

From four o’clock until five Billy Grant coaxed the Nurse with what voice he had.  The idea had become an obsession; and minute by minute, panting breath by panting breath, her resolution wore away.  He was not delirious; he was as sane as she was and terribly set.  And this thing he wanted was so easy to grant; meant so little to her and, for some strange reason, so much to him.  Perhaps, if she did it, he would think a little of what the preacher was saying.

At five o’clock, utterly worn out with the struggle and finding his pulse a negligible quantity, in response to his pleading eyes the Nurse, kneeling and holding a thermometer under her patient’s arm with one hand, reached the other one over the bed and was married in a dozen words and a soiled white apron.