Eliza shook her head hopelessly. "I'm glad it happened," she said—"glad. In writing these articles I've tried to make him understood; I've tried to put my whole soul into them so that the people will see that he isn't, wouldn't be, a thief nor a grafter. I've described him as he is—big, honorable, gentle—"
"I didn't know you were writing fiction," said her brother, impatiently.
"I'm not. It's all true. I've cried over those articles, Dan. I've petted them, and I've kissed his name—oh, I've been silly!" She smiled at him through a sudden glimmer of tears.
Dan began to wonder if his sister, in spite of her exemplary conduct in the past, were after all going to have hysterics. Women were especially likely to, he reflected, when they demanded the impossible. At last he said, uncomfortably: "Gee, I thought I was the dippy member of the family!"
"It's our chance to help him," she urged. "Will you—?"
"No! I'm sorry, Sis, but my little bit wouldn't mean anything to him; it means everything to me. Maybe that's selfish—I don't care. I'm as mad over Natalie as you seem to be over him. A week's delay can't make any difference now—he played and lost. But I can't afford to lose. He'll make another fortune, that's sure—but do you think I'll ever find another Natalie? No! Don't argue, for I won't listen."
He left the house abruptly, and Eliza went into the white bedroom which O'Neil had fitted up for her. From the remotest corner of her lowest bureau drawer she drew a battered tin box, and, dividing the money it contained into two equal parts, placed one in the pockets of her mannish jacket.
It was dark when Tom Slater arrived, at the head of a group of soiled workmen whom he ushered into the parlor of the bungalow.
"Here's the bunch!" he announced, laconically.
As the new-comers ranged themselves uncomfortably about the wall Dan Appleton entered and greeted them with his customary breeziness.