"No," Ilene answered tersely. Her lips tightened. "He committed suicide, after they'd been married a little over a year."

"Oh," the doctor said. "I'm sorry. I guess I haven't had much time these last few years to keep up with things."

"If there's anything special that needs to be done, I guess I'm the one who could do it," she said. "I'm her closest friend. She gave me power of attorney."

The doctor stared at her silently. She could read what was in his mind behind those shining bifocals. She drew her head up proudly. What did it matter what he thought? What did it matter what anyone thought now?

"Did you get the results from the blood tests?"

The doctor nodded.

She tried to keep her voice from shaking. "Is it leukemia?"

"No," he said. He could see the hope spring up in her eyes. Quickly he spoke to avoid the pain of disappointment. "It was what we thought. Encephalitis." He noted her puzzled expression. "Sometimes it's called sleeping sickness."

The hope in Ilene refused to die. "Then she has a chance?"

"A very small one," the doctor said, still watching her carefully. "But if she lives, there's no telling what she'll be like."

"What do you mean?" Ilene asked harshly.

"Encephalitis is a virus that settles in the brain," he explained slowly. "For the next four or five days, as the virus builds up in intensity, she will be subject to extraordinary high fevers. During these fevers, the virus will attack the brain. It is only after the fever breaks that we'll be able to tell how much damage she has sustained."

"You mean her mind will be gone?" Ilene's eyes were large with horror.

"I don't know," the doctor said. "The damage can take many forms. Her mind; perhaps she'll be paralyzed or partly so; she may know her own name, she may not. The residual effects are similar to a stroke. It depends on what part of the brain has been damaged."

The sick fear came up inside her. Quickly she caught her breath against it, her face paling. "Breathe deeply and sip a little water," the doctor said.

She did as he commanded and the color flooded back into her face. "Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?"

"We're doing everything we can. We know so little about the disease; how it's transmitted. In its more common form, in tropical countries, it's supposed to be carried by insects and transmitted by their bite. But many cases, in the United States and elsewhere, just appear, with no apparent causation at all."

"We just got back from Africa three months ago," Ilene said. "We made a picture there."

"I know," the doctor said. "Miss Marlowe told me about it. That was what first made me suspicious."

"But no one else is sick," Ilene said. "And we were all out there for three months, living exactly the same way, in the same places."

The doctor shrugged. "As I said, we aren't really sure what causes it."

Ilene stared at him. A note of bewilderment crept into her voice. "Why couldn't it be me?" she asked. "She has so much to live for."

The doctor reached across the table and patted her hand. With that one warm gesture, she no longer resented him, as she did most men. "How many times in my life have I heard that question? And I'm no closer to the answer now than when I first began to practice."

She looked at him gratefully. "Do you think we should say anything to her?"

His dark eyes grew large behind his glasses. "What purpose would it serve?" he asked. "Let her have her dreams."

Rina heard the dim voices outside the door. She was tired, weary and tired, and everything was a soft, blurred haze. Vaguely she wondered if the dream would come again. The thin edges of it poked at her mind. Good. It was coming.

Softly, comfortably now, she let herself slip down into it. Further and further she felt herself dropping into the dream. She smiled unconsciously and turned her face against the pillow. Now she was surrounded by her dream. The dream of death she had dreamed ever since she was a little girl.

2.

IT WAS COOL IN THE YARD BENEATH THE SHADE of the giant old apple trees. Rina sat in the grass and arranged the dolls around the small wooden plank that served as a table.

"Now, Susie," she said to the little dark-haired doll. "You must not gulp your food."

The black eyes of the doll stared unwinkingly back at her.

"Oh, Susie!" she said in imaginary concern. "You spilled it all over your dress! Now I'll have to change you again."

She picked up the doll and undressed it quickly. She washed the clothes in an imaginary tub, then ironed them. "Now you stay clean," she exclaimed in pretended anger.

She turned to the other doll. "Are you enjoying your breakfast, Mary?" She smiled. "Eat it all up. It'll make you big and strong."

Occasionally, she would glance toward the big house. She was happy to be left alone. It wasn't very often that she was. Usually, one or the other of the servants would be calling her to come back in. Then her mother would scold her and tell her that she was not to play in the yard, that she must stay near the kitchen door at the far side of the house.

But she didn't like it there. It was hot and there was no grass, only dirt. Besides, it was near the stables and the smell of the horses. She didn't understand why her mother always made such a fuss. Mr. and Mrs. Marlowe never said anything when they found her there. Once, Mr. Marlowe even had picked her up and swung her high over his head, tickling her with his mustache until she almost burst with hysterical laughter.

But when she'd come inside, her mother had been angry and had spanked her bottom and made her go up to their room and stay there all afternoon. That was the worst punishment of all. She loved to be in the kitchen while her mother cooked the dinner. Everything smelled so good. Everybody always said her mother was the best cook the Marlowes had ever had.

She heard footsteps and looked up. Ronald Marlowe threw himself to the ground beside her. She looked down again and finished feeding Susie, then said in a matter-of-fact voice, "Would you like some dinner, Laddie?"

He sniffed disdainfully from the superiority of his lofty eight years. "I don't see anything to eat."

She turned toward him. "You're not looking," she said. She forced a doll's plate into his hand, "Eat it. It's very good for you."

Reluctantly he pretended to eat. After a moment, he was bored and got to his feet. "I'm hungry," he said. "I'm going in and get some real food."

"You won't get any," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because my mommy's still sick and nobody cooked."

"I'll get something," he said confidently.

She watched him walk away and turned back to her dolls. It was turning dusk when Molly, the upstairs maid, came out looking for her. The girl's face was red from crying. "Come, macushla," she said, sweeping Rina up in her arms. "It's your mither that wants to set eyes on ye again."

Peters, the coachman, was there, as was Mary, the downstairs maid, and Annie, the scullery helper. They were standing around her mother's bed and they made way for her as she came over. There was also a man in a black suit, holding a cross in his hand.

She stood very still near the bed, looking at her mother solemnly. Her mother looked beautiful, her face so white and calm, her white-blond hair brushed back softly from her forehead. Rina moved closer to the bed.

Her mother's lips moved but Rina couldn't hear what she was saying. The man in the black suit picked her up. "Kiss your mother, child," he said.

Obediently Rina kissed her mother's cheek. It was cool to her lips. Her mother smiled again and closed her eyes, then suddenly opened them and looked upward unseeingly. Quickly the man shifted Rina to his other arm. He reached down and closed her mother's eyes.

Molly held out her arms and the man gave Rina to her. Rina looked back at her mother. She was sleeping now. She looked beautiful, just as she did in the early mornings when Rina would awaken and stare at her over the edge of the bed.

Rina looked around the room at the others. The girls were crying, and even Peters, the coachman, had tears in his eyes. She looked up into Molly's face. "Why are you crying?" she asked solemnly. "Is my mommy dead?"

The tears came afresh in the girl's eyes. She hugged Rina closely to her. "Hush, child," she whispered. "We're crying because we love her."

She started out of the room with Rina in her arms. The door closed behind them and Rina looked up into her face. "Will Mommy be up in time to make breakfast tomorrow?"

Molly stared at her in sudden understanding. Then she sank to her knees in the hallway at the top of the back stairs. She rocked back and forth with the child in her arms. "Oh, my poor little child, my poor little orphan child," she cried.

Rina looked up at her and after a moment, the tears became contagious and she, too, began to cry. But she didn't quite know why.

Peters came into the kitchen while the servants were eating supper. Rina looked up at him and smiled. "Look, Mr. Peters." She laughed happily. "I had three desserts!"

Molly looked down at her. "Hush, child," she said quickly, the tears coming again to her eyes. "Finish your ice cream."

Rina stared at her thoughtfully and lifted the spoon again to her mouth. She couldn't understand why the girls began to cry every time they spoke to her. The home-made vanilla ice cream tasted cool and sweet. She took another spoonful.

"I just spoke to the master," Peters said. "He said it would be all right if we laid her out in my room over the stable. And Father Nolan said we could bury her from St. Thomas'."

"But how can we?" Molly cried, "when we don't even know if she was a Catholic? Not once in the three years she's been here did she go to Mass."

"What difference does that make?" Peters asked angrily. "Did she not make her confession to Father Nolan? Did she not receive the last rites from him and take the Holy Sacraments? Father Nolan is satisfied that she was a Catholic."

Mary, the downstairs maid, who was the oldest of the three girls, nodded her head in agreement. "I think Father Nolan is right," she said. "Maybe she'd done something and was afraid to go to Mass, but the important thing was that she came back to the church in the end."

Peters nodded his head emphatically. "It's settled, then," he said, starting for the door. He stopped and looked back at them. "Molly, take the child to sleep with you tonight. I'm goin' down to the saloon and get sivral of the boys to help me move her tonight. Father Nolan said he'd send Mr. Collins over to fix her up. He told me the church would pay for it."

"Oh, the good Father," Mary said.

"Bless him," Annie said, crossing herself.

"Can I have some more ice cream?" Rina asked.

There was a knock at the door and Molly opened it quickly. "Oh, it's you, mum," she exclaimed in a whisper.

"I came to see if the child was all right," Geraldine Marlowe said.

The girl stepped back. "Won't you come in, mum?"

Mrs. Marlowe looked over at the bed. Rina was sleeping soundly, her dolls, Susie and Mary, on either side of her. Her white-blond hair hung in tiny ringlets around her head. "How is she?"

"Fine, mum." The girl bobbed her head. "The poor darlin' was so exhausted with the excitement, she dropped off like that. Mercifully she doesn't understand. She's too young."

Geraldine Marlowe looked at the child again. For a moment, she thought of how it would be if she were the one to go, leaving her Laddie alone and motherless. Though, in a way, that was different, for Laddie would still have his father.

She remembered the day she had hired Rina's mother. Her references were very good although she had not worked for several years. "I have a child, ma'am," she'd said in her peculiarly precise schoolbook English. "A little girl, two years old."

"What about your husband, Mrs. Osterlaag?"

"He went down with his ship. He and the child never saw each other." She'd looked down at the floor for a moment. "We had the child late in life, ma'am. We Finns don't marry young; we wait until we can afford it. I lived on our savings as long as I could. I must go back to work."

Mrs. Marlowe had hesitated. A two-year-old child might turn out to be an annoyance.

"Rina would be no problem, ma'am. She's a good child and very quiet. She can sleep in my room and I'd be willing to have you take out of my wages for her board."

Mrs. Marlowe had always wanted a little girl but after Laddie was born, the doctor had told her there would be no more children. It would be good for Laddie to have someone to play with. He was getting entirely too spoiled.

She'd smiled suddenly. "There will be no deduction from your wages, Mrs. Osterlaag. After all, how much can a little girl eat?"

That had been almost three years ago. And Rina's mother had been right. Rina had been no trouble at all.

"What will happen to the child, mum?" Molly whispered.

Mrs. Marlowe turned to the servant girl. "I don't know," she said, thinking about it for the first time. "Mr. Marlowe is going to inquire in town tomorrow about her relatives."

The servant girl shook her head. "He won't find any, mum," she said positively. "I often heard the mither say there was no family at all." Her eyes began to fill with tears. "Oh, the poor, poor darlin'. Now she'll have to go to the county home."

Mrs. Marlowe felt a lump come up in her throat. She looked down at Rina, sleeping peacefully in the bed. She could feel the tears stirring behind her own eyes. "Stop your crying, Molly," she said sharply. "I'm sure she won't have to go to the county home. Mr. Marlowe will locate her family."

"But what if he doesn't?"

"Then we'll think of something," she said. She crossed the room and stepped quickly out into the narrow hallway. There was a scuffling sound behind her. She turned around.

"Aisy now, boys!" She heard Peters' voice. Then he appeared, backing through the doorway across the hall. She pressed herself back to let them pass.

"Beggin' your pardon, mum," he said, his face flushed with exertion. "A sad, sad thing."

They went past with their shrouded burden, impregnating the still, warm air with a faint but unmistakable odor of beer. She wondered if she had done the right thing when she'd persuaded her husband to allow them to use the apartment over the stables. An Irish wake could well turn into a shambles.

She heard their heavy footsteps on the stairs as they carried Bertha Osterlaag, born in a small fishing village in Finland, down to her eventual funeral in a strange church, and her grave in a strange land.

3.

HARRISON MARLOWE COULD SEE HIS WIFE'S HEAD bent over her embroidery from the doorway. He crossed the room quietly, and bending over the back of her chair, quickly kissed her cheek. His wife's voice held the usual delightful shock. "Oh, Harry! What if the servants are watching?"