The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-27

Well, I guess you know your way in. I've got to run"
 Before Janet could find word' he had driven away Of course it was just some more of Barney. nonsense. Nevertheless, she could not forget the way flss eyes hac searched hers.
 Aunt Mary,s door was closed when Janet stepped into the hal outside. Apparently she had gone to sleep and slepc the night through. Janet never knew why she opened the door and peepeo inside. She did not understand al once, either, what 1t was about the appearance of Aunt Mary's room that struck chill to her heart, ever before she had opened the door wide enough to see more than the small area of rug at the head oi the bed.
 Of course the bed lamp was burning; but Aunt Mary often slept with light.
 Later, Janet remembered that 1t was the book on the floor. It was sprawled open, face downwards, with the leaves bent and crumpled Aunt Mary, who cherished her books as she cherished her next of kin, could never have left a book lying like that Yet she had.
 A cold blast of air greeted Janet as she went in.
 The bed was empty. There was only a neat dent in the pillow, a slight disarrangement of the cov- CTS to indicate that 1t had been occupied.
 Over by the front windows, un- der the wind-billowed curtains lay Aunt Mary in a crumpled heap on the floor. She must have risen from bed at the sound of some fog bound motor horn, hoping, per- haps, that was Barneys' - oi course this was only Janet's guess -- dropped her cherished book heedlessly on the rug in her haste and hurrying to the window slipped and fallen on the polished floor.
 She was unconscious when Janet reached her. She remained uncon- scious for hours after she was taken to the hospital. The resident physi- clan whom Janet talked to first said she had a broken hip and dangerous chill. Apparently she had lain for hours in her thin night gown under those wind-blown cur- tainS.
 Janet tried desperately to get Q message to cynthia at Nice. But evidently Cynthia and Timothy Berton had moved on since the last card had come, and her mes sage missed them. It was six weeks before Janet actually caught up with them in Cairo, and by that time 1t was too late.
 When she tried to get Barney at the office of his newspaper, she was told by Q crisp secretarial voice that Mcknight was out of town No, the office couldn't say where he was to be found. When Janet tried his home tele- phone later, 1t was silent. For the first time Janet realized how much she had come to depend on Bar ney.
 Lance called her up - first at the apartment, as the switchboard girl told her later, and finally at the hospital. By that time Aunt Mary's chill had developed into pleurisy-- overnight it was pneumonia. The surgeon who set her hip told Janet that she would probably never walk again.
 Janet was at the hospital when Lance's call came.
 Janet" Lance said, T - I'm sorry that I can tell you. Isn't there something I can do?"
 I'm afraid not, Lance. Only the doctor Is much use," Janet said wearily - quite as if he were any of a hundred others who had called to ask the same question.
 "It won't hurt like this forever, Jan," Cynthia had said. T know" And unbelievably, Cynthia had been right.
 So many people wanted to help that Janet -- especially after the first week - found 1t hard to un- derstand why Barney was not among them.
 Thanksgiving came and went. Christmas was at hand Aunt Mary had always been as excited as Q child about Christmas. She had passed the pneumonia crisis safely, to the complete amazement of her doctors, but continued to suffer 6 great deal from her hip.
 It was the day Cynthia's radio gram came from Caro that Janet. firmly elected from Aunt Mary's room by the nurse, went out for walk In the park.
 On the bench from which you could see the white house, nestling, cameo like, against the bare winter hillside, Janet found the old gen. tleman she had talked with there before, a bag of peanuts on the bench beside him, an opened news paper on his knee.
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