Harlan had begun to pace up and down the room. “I didn’t understand that Dan was in real trouble financially,” he said. “He’d been on the edge so often—I talked about it, but I’d got to thinking of it as a permanent thing for him to be on the edge. I didn’t realize he might actually fall off—not until that little Jew friend of his came to me the other morning and made me realize it. Well, there’s one thing I can be thankful for: I can be grateful that all I thought of, for once in my life, was that I was Dan’s brother!”
“Harlan?” Martha Shelby’s voice called him softly from the stairway.
“Yes?” He turned to the door, explaining, “Dan may want me—he sends for me to come in sometimes. Perhaps you might——” He paused.
“Yes,” George said, rising. “I’ll go and wire her. She might want to come. At any rate she’ll send Henry. Then I’ll come back here. I’ll be downstairs in this room, if there’s anything——”
“I’ll let you know,” Harlan said, and he went upstairs to Martha.
“Your mother’s been with him,” she whispered. “She and the nurse said he seemed to be trying to ask for somebody, but he was so weak, and his cough troubled him so much——”
“I’ll go in and see,” he said; but he came back to her a few moments later, and told her it was for her that Dan was asking.
She went into his room, sat by his bed, and put her hand gently over his on the coverlet. “Why, you’re better, Dan,” she said, as he turned his head and looked at her with eyes that cleared and grew brighter, for he recognized her.
“Think so?” He spoke distinctly though his voice was weak. “Well, maybe—maybe. I did hope——”
“Yes, Dan?”