Rachel’s face relaxed. “Will you stay with me?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, and kissed her cheek. “And if you sleep, I shall be here when you wake. I promise.”

Rachel closed her eyes.

The next day she was stronger and again asked for Adam.

“You remember—I told you he has been ill,” Sarah answered.

“But Adam is so strong,” Rachel protested. “Surely he is recovering as quickly as I. I wish he would write to me. A word would do. Will you tell him, Mama?” Sarah could not answer. “Mama, bring paper and pen to me so that I may write a sentence to him.”

“Not now, darling. You are not strong yet. Rest.”

“Please, Mama.”

“In a little while perhaps.”

Rachel lay silent for a time, but her eyes were open, and worry made lines between them. Sarah fussed at tidying articles on a small table nearby; but that seemed heartless and evasive to her, and so presently she returned to the bedside, drawing a chair close. Rachel did not look at her, but she knew she had returned, for she said, “Mama, you have always told me the truth.” Sarah waited in silent dread. “Is Adam alive?”

Sarah knelt by the bed and took Rachel’s hands, holding them to her lips, wordless. When she dared to look at Rachel’s face, she saw that it was vacant of expression. Rachel had fainted. Sarah revived her with spirits of ammonia while Juanita stroked her forehead with a hand moistened in camphor water.

Rachel looked at no one, but as she continued to think, her expression grew more firm, and she said, “He is alive. I know it.” And for the time Sarah was willing to leave it at that.

In her weakness Rachel slept much of the next several days. Dr. Platt came once instead of twice a day, and then not at all, asking that he be summoned only if the patient’s condition worsened, which he did not anticipate its doing.

Lauretta chose this time to take her leave. “Now that I know the Angel of Death has flown away,” she whispered to Sarah with a meaningful quaver. Her trunks were packed and off she went, her destination Atlanta. She was vague as to her plans. “Things happen to me, you know.”