The preacher moved aside with a sigh of relief and softly tiptoed out of the room as Stuart took the outstretched hand.
"It's awfully good of you to come up here so soon," he began feebly. "I've some plans I want you to carry out for me right away. You see I never thought before of the world as a place where there were so many men and women sick and suffering—thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands. These doctors say that every night in New York alone there are half a million people sick or bending over the beds of loved ones who are suffering, and two hundred die every day."
He paused for breath, and the black eyes stared at his friend.
"Jim, I can't die! I haven't lived! I've got to get up from here and do some things I've meant to do—all those sick people—I've got to do something for them. I'm going to build palaces for the lame, the halt, the sick, the blind. I'm going to gather the great men of science from the ends of the earth and set them to work to lift this shadow from the world."
A sudden pain seized and convulsed his frail body and Stuart called the doctors from the next room.
They stood by in helpless sympathy.
"Can't you stop this pain?" the financier gasped in anger. "What are you here for? Am I not able to buy enough morphine to stop this hellish agony?"
His family doctor bent and said:
"Your heart action is too low just now, Mr. Bivens, you can't stand it."
"Well, I can't stand this! Give it to me, I tell you!"