“I’ve never been anyplace,” she said. “I sometimes think there isn’t any other place except here, that Europe or Mexico or the Fiji Islands are only places in the mind. Of course—”

“I want a new start,” Annie broke in. “That’s what I meant.”

Helen looked sternly at her watch. Annie got up to go.

“Does he have any relatives anywhere except you?”

“I remember there was a cousin. It was so long ago. She was married to someone in Providence, Rhode Island. I think they still must live there.”

“You’ll have to go through his papers and find out what you can. He’s going to die, you know. It’s a tiresome business, funeral, all that. Do you suppose he made a will? There’s the house and the land. It’s probably worth something.”

“Oh—don’t you see? I’ve been away! I don’t know about these things. How would I know?”

“You’ll have to know, now. I’ll make him as comfortable as I can. But what about the house, his things? You can’t walk away. He was your uncle.”

“He’s not dead yet!”

“I’ve taken care of a murdering old woman for fifteen years! It’s her fault my father and brother went up in flames. I went to nursing school, hating it! Hating it! But that’s what I was meant to do. It was the only way I could see to her! She would have been in the madhouse if it weren’t for me. Do you imagine you can just go off to your England and forget such an obligation?”

Helen Sears was standing near a glass case on the shelves of which reposed a number of steel instruments, some of them scissors with beaks like shrikes.

“I won’t. I’m not. I can’t go for a while anyhow,” Annie protested. “You don’t understand. It’s that I don’t know what to do! And he’s breathing, right now. He might not die. How do you know he’ll die?”

“I only take people when they’re dying,” cried Helen Sears, “so he must be dying!”

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Annie shouted at her, holding up her hands in front of her chest. The woman might attack her! Fling that case at her! She was mad, as mad as her old mother. Helen was looking at her watch again. What could it tell her?

“All right,” she said, her voice calm now. “Sorry to be so emotional. I have to deal with relatives, you see. All the time.” She emitted a lifeless little chuckle. “It quite turns one sour, cynical, you might say.”

In her room at the Murray Hill Hotel, Annie stared for a long time at the telephone. It would only be nine o’clock in Los Angeles. Theda would be up and about. But what could Theda tell her? Did she want to be told anything? Only to hear Theda’s voice, to hear a friend’s voice!