"What's the ail of him?"
"A stroke, I'm afraid. He can't talk, and he's stiff as a stake. Oh, I wish the doctor would come!"
Her anxiety was moving. "I'll try to find him for you."
"I wish you would."
"You aren't all alone?"
"Yes; Mrs. Gilfoyle had to go home to her baby. She said she'd come back, but she hasn't."
Roy's heart swept a wide arc as he stood looking into the pale, awed, lovely face of the girl.
"I'll bring help," he said, and vanished into the darkness, shivering with a sense of guilt. "The poor old cuss! Probably he was sick the very minute I was bullyragging him."
The local doctor had gone down the valley on a serious case, and would not be back till morning, his wife said, thereupon Roy wired to Claywall, the county-seat, for another physician. He also secured the aid of Mrs. James, the landlady of the Palace Hotel, and hastened back to the relief of the girl, whom he found walking the floor of the little kitchen, tremulous with dread.
"I'm afraid he's dying," she said. "His teeth are set and he's unconscious."