Then, rising above rows of rickety houses, the mill came into sight, blocking the street-end, and restored his appreciation of the imminent. A wrecked coal-wagon lay horseless in the middle of the street opposite a bent lamp-post, the coal heaped where it had fallen. Battered hats were in the gutter, and on the pavement was a coat, torn and muddy. No smoke curled to-day from the chimney of the mill's engine-room, and in front of its shattered main-door, rudely repaired by unpainted planks of fresh pine, two policemen lounged, facing a string of mute pickets.
Luke passed the door unmolested and entered the office. The superintendent, a whiskered man named Whitaker, was there, and one or two pasty and frightened clerks.
"Mr. Forbes down yet?" asked Luke briskly.
"No, sir," said Whitaker. "He just sent word he was sick."
"Sick? What's the matter with him?"
"I don't know exactly, Mr. Huber. It was Miss Forbes telephoned, and she said he'd had a kind of fainting fit right after breakfast."
Luke sat down at the desk and called up the Forbes house.
"Mr. Forbes there?" he asked of the maid that answered him.
"No, sir. Mr. Forbes is in bed."
"Ill?"