"Yes. It made him very happy."
"And Peter Smithers was with them?"
"Yes."
Phil, who knew only that Helen had stopped to speak with some one, had no means of knowing who. She was the same to him as any other person of millions in his silent night, unseen, unheard. His circle of actual human beings consisted of Helen, or Henriette, as he thought, Bricktop, the nurses, the specialists, and now his parents and Peter. They were the visible stars in the darkness. And Helen was taking him back to his chair now.
"You've heard that Smithers will leave all his fortune to Cousin Phil, willy-nilly?" said Henriette, following them indoors. "Mother wrote it from Paris. She had it from Truckleford."
"Only they have not told him," Helen said.
"Why not? I should think that if there were anything that would make him want to live it would be the thought that he was to have three millions."
"Mr. Smithers decided not," Helen replied.
"And how has he stood the day?" Henriette asked the stereotyped question of her sister.
"Very well!" was the answer. "I'm afraid it may have tired and excited him, though." She was careful not to let him overtax himself; and now, when he wanted his pad, she added: "I must not let him write much."