She kept her hand in his while she laughed again. "The train goes from the Grand Central at one. I'll wire Aunt Joyce."
Outside Ewing met Bartell, but he did not talk of the San Juan.
"You must see to your sister," he said. "She looks the way my father did. You ought to get her out of here. She's going off for two weeks, but that won't set her right. Go look at her!"
Bartell found his sister where Ewing had left her.
"Well, Nell, how is it now? What did Birley say?"
She stirred impatiently in her chair. "He wouldn't commit himself. He told me to rest away from here for two weeks and then come back to see a specialist he'd send me to, a man who knows—such things."
"I just met Ewing—he spoke of how badly you look. I'm worried, Nell. You're not going to be left here."
"I must tell you something, dear—oh, a ghastly joke, if ever there was one: You know that one death trap of a tenement I've had so much trouble with——"
"Where all those consumptives were? Yes."
"They've died there like sheep. I had it inspected—I wanted to have the owner compelled to build it over or something, but we always found that the law had been cunningly met with—not the spirit of it, but the letter. The airshafts and drains were bad enough to kill, but not bad enough to hurt the owner. Yesterday I determined to find out who the owner was, to make a personal appeal. I was willing to buy the place myself."