"What's the matter?" Mr. Braden cried, startled at this sudden transformation. "Are you ill? What—"
"Get—" Godfrey French muttered indistinctly, "get—" He fell back in his chair, inert, sagging arms loose, his face gray, unconscious.
For an instant Mr. Braden stared at his associate horrified. It was as if he had been seized, struck down and throttled by an invisible hand which might claim another victim. Recovering, he poured a glass of liquor with a shaking hand, and shivered as the rim clinked against the unconscious man's teeth. He ran to the door.
"Help!" he shouted wildly to the echoing darkness of the hall. "Come, somebody! Help!"
His call was answered by Kathleen and young Larry.
"Your father!" Mr. Braden quavered. But Kathleen, pushing past him, ran to her father's side.
"He has a hypodermic somewhere," she said. "Look in his room, Larry, quick!" Young Larry bounded for the stairs. "He has had these attacks before, but this is the worst."
"I'll go for the doctor," Mr. Braden offered.
"Larry will go. Your horse isn't fast enough. I wish you'd stay here, if you don't mind. The other boys are out and I'm alone."
But in a moment Larry returned with a hypodermic syringe in its case and a vial of tablets. Kathleen dissolved one of the latter, and baring her father's arm administered the injection with a swiftness and steadiness which commanded Mr. Braden's admiration. "We'd better get him up to his room," she said.