''Don''t look at me!'' I cry. And then: ''Don''t leave me!'' For I have a sense that, if she will only stay, some calamity, some dreadful thing—I do not know it, cannot name it—will be averted; and I—
or sne—will be saved. I hide my face against her and seize her hand. But her hand is pale where it used to be freckled. I gaze at her, and do not know her.
She says, in a voice that is strange to me: ''It''s Sue, miss. Only Sue. You see me? You are dreaming.''
''Dreaming?''
She touches my cheek. She smooths my hair—not like Agnes, after all, but like— Like no-one. She says again, ''It''s Sue. That Agnes had the scarlatina, and is gone back home. You mus