"On the upward way. He's going to come out all right, but"—the speaker cast an almost apologetic look at Linda—"you doubtless know that King was up against it for a while. It seems that one night there at the club when the strain was over, he felt himself going to pieces and he wrote me a note asking me, in case of his illness, to keep his papers—the contents of his desk—from Henry Radcliffe until he should recover."
The blood pressed into Linda's face. She was too charitable to her friend even to glance her way.
"The note was not finished. King had evidently taken the precaution to address and stamp the envelope before he began, and the last sane thing he did was to seal the letter inside it. By the time I received it and got over to the club, King was gone."
"Gone!" Mrs. Porter gasped. "You said—"
Fred nodded reassuringly toward her questioning face as she leaned forward.
"Yes, they had taken him to the hospital, you know."
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Porter, "and I here. Why didn't somebody write me?"
Linda sat erect, in an attitude of courteous attention.
"I never thought of it, Mrs. Porter. To tell the truth, I didn't know till he was convalescing that you were at all near to one another, and I didn't want to write anything to add to Linda's worries." He glanced at the girl's unmoved face.
"Did you keep his papers from Henry?" she asked dryly.