Page:Frank Packard - The White Moll.djvu/33

 settled herself on the doorstep, supporting the woman's head in her lap. Her face had set again in grim, hard, perplexed lines. There seemed something unnatural, something menacingly weird, something even uncanny about it all. Perhaps it was because it seemed as though she could so surely foresee the end. Gypsy Nan would not live through the night. Something told her that. The woman's masquerade, for whatever purpose it had been assumed, was over. "You'll play the game, won't you? You'll see me through?" There seemed something pitifully futile in those words now!

The officer returned.

"It's all right," he said. "How's she seem?"

Rhoda Gray shook her head.

A passer-by stopped, asked what was the matter—and lingered curiously. Another, and another, did the same. A little crowd collected. The officer kept them back. Came then the strident clang of a gong and the rapid beat of horses' hoofs. A white-coated figure jumped from the ambulance, pushed his way forward, and bent over the form in Rhoda Gray's lap. A moment more, and they were carrying Gypsy Nan to the ambulance.

Rhoda Gray spoke to the officer:

"I think perhaps I had better go with her."

"Sure!" said the officer.

She caught snatches of the officer's words, as he made a report to the doctor:

"… Found her here in the street … Charlotte Green … nothing else … the White Moll, straight as God makes 'em … she'll see the woman through." He turned to Rhoda Gray. "You can get in there with them, miss."

It took possibly ten minutes to reach the hospital, but, before that time, Gypsy Nan, responding in a