"I know it, Carter. I'll help you, dear. Don't be so afraid! Nobody shall see you. Put your arm on my shoulder—there! Step down a little farther!"
With all her slight strength she supported and helped him, the keen wind blowing her long, thin dress about them both, and the lace falling back from her arms, leaving them bare to the elbow.
Half-way up the walk he broke away from her and cried out: "I'll have to go away. It's dangerous for me to stay here an hour."
"Yes, Carter dear, I know. The doctor says it's the climate. We are going early in the morning. Everything's packed. See how cold I am getting out here! You'll come in with me now, won't you?"
Coaxing and helping him, she at last succeeded in getting him to bed. The blood on his handkerchief told its own story.
She straightened the room, drew a screen between him and the fire, and then went to the bed, where he had already fallen into a deep sleep. Sinking on her knees beside him, she broke into heavy, silent sobs. The one grief of her girlhood had been the waywardness of her only brother. From childhood she had stood between him and blame, shielding him, helping him, loving him. She had fought valiantly against his weakness, but her meager strength had been pitted against the accumulated intemperance of generations.
She chafed his thin wrists, which her fingers could span; she tenderly smoothed his face as it lay gray against the pillows; then she caught up his hand and held it to her breast with a quick, motherly gesture.
"Take him soon, God!" she prayed. "He is too weak to try any more."
At midnight she slipped away to her own room and took off the dainty gown she had put on for Sandy's coming.
For long hours she lay in her great canopied