"I've heard of bromine," said Brower. "That's simpler, isn't it—and safer?" Jane's voice had ceased, and silence maintained its sway within.
"She will meet all his family," the old gentleman went on. "She seems to expect to find them very fine people—finer than any we have here. And she will see the place where they live—a very much handsomer place, I make out, than any in this part of the world." A drawn and weary smile passed lightly over his face.
There was a movement in the bay-window, and presently a solid footstep in the hall.
"There's nothing like finding things out for yourself," said Brower, colorlessly.
Bingham appeared on the door-step, just as the tail of locomotive smoke swept over the front yard. "Will you smoke with us?" asked Marshall.
Brower smiled, though neither of the others seemed conscious of any secondary meaning in this simple question. "Thank you, no," replied Bingham. "I am moving on to an appointment, and am a little late as it is." He looked down on Marshall with an expression of friendly solicitude, and shook hands with him in a long, slow clasp. "Good-night; you are entitled to better care than you are giving yourself." And he moved down the footpath towards the front gate.
Marshall looked after him wistfully. "If I were only in that man's shoes! If I but had half his health and strength!" Brower heard nothing of this; he was straining his ears for a further sound from within.
"I must get rest," cried the old man, pitifully. "I'm wearing out. I stay up till midnight and after, every night, and even then it's sometimes daylight before I have a minute's sleep, I can't stand it; nobody can."
There was a sound inside, as of scuffling among the furniture. It was
Jane, feeling her way through the dark, listening for the sound of
Theodore Brower's voice, and murmuring tremulously with her own,
"Toujours fidèle; toujours fidèle!"
"What can I do?" asked the old man, with an appealing grip on Brower's arm. "What doctor can I see? Where can I go for a change and for rest? Or how," he groaned, "can I go away at all? They are crowding me down; they are wrenching my business from my hands! I can't give way at such a time as this!"