Arthurs heard Beulah in the hall. "Take off his clothes, Grey," he said, and turned to the doorway. "Where's your mother, Beulah?" he asked in a low voice, closing the bedroom door behind him.
"Dressing." The girl looked in his face, and drew back with a little cry. "What's the matter, Uncle Fred? What's wrong?"
"A friend of mine has been hurt, and an old friend of your mother's.
She must not see him just now. You will arrange that?"
"Yes. But I must see him—I must help."
Beulah hurried to the room where her mother was rapidly dressing, "A man has been hurt, mother," she said, with suppressed excitement. "We need hot water. Will you start a fire in the range?"
Mary Harris mistook Beulah's emotion for natural sympathy over a suffering creature, and hurried to the kitchen. Mrs. Arthurs was whispering with her husband in the hall, but a moment later joined Mary at the range.
Then Beulah entered the room. The policeman was speaking to Arthurs. "I must go into town now with my prisoner," he was saying. "I will send out a doctor at once, and in the meantime I know you will do everything possible."
Beulah turned her eyes to the bed. A man was lying there, and an old man was sitting beside it. At the second glance she recognized him, but in an instant she had herself under control. She walked with a steady step to the bed and looked for a full minute in her brother's face. Then she looked at her father.
"What have you done to him?" she said.
He threw out his hand feebly. "You do well to ask me that," he said. "I take all the blame." He raised his face slowly until his eyes met hers. They were not the eyes she had known. They were the eyes of a man who had been crushed, who had been powdered between the wheels of Fate. The old masterful quality, the old indomitable will that stirred her anger and admiration were gone, and in their place were coals of sorrow and ashes of defeat. For a moment she held back; then, with arms outstretched, she fell upon her father's breast.