stion-asking, while Pop lay inert, with a little
thermometer protruding from his mouth like a most inappropriate
cigarette.

The doctor was uncertain yet whether it were one of the big fevers or
pneumonia or just a bilious attack. Blood-tests would show; and he
scraped the lobe of the ear of the unresisting, indifferent old man, and
took a drop of thin pink fluid on a bit of glass. The doctor tried to
reassure the panicky family, but his voice was low and important.

IV

The brilliant receptions and displays that _Mere_ and the children had
planned were abandoned without regret. All minor regrets were lost in
the one big regret for the poor old, worn-out man up-stairs.

There was a dignity about Pop now. The lowliest peasant takes on majesty
when he is battling for his life and his home.

There was dismay in all the hearts now--dismay at the things they had
said and the thoughts and sneers; dismay at the future without this
shabby but unfailing provider.

The proofs of the family photograph lay scattered about the living-room.
Pop was not there. They had smiled about it before. Now it looked
ominous! What would become of this family if Pop were not there?

The house was filled with a thick sense of hush like a heavy fog; but
thoughts seemed to be all the louder in the silence--jumbled thoughts of
selfish alarm; filial terror; remorse; tenderness; mutual rebuke; dread
of death, of the future, of the past.

The day nurse and the night nurse were in command of the house. The only
events were the arrivals of the doctor, his long stops, his whispered
conferences with the nurses, and the unsatisfactory, evasive answers he
gave as the family ambushed him at the foot of the stairs on his way
out.

Meanwhile they could not help Pop in his long wrestle. They had drained
his strength and bruised his heart while he had his power, and now that
he needed their help and their youth they could not lend him anything;
they could not pay a single instalment on the mortgages they had
incurred.

They could only stand at the door now and then and look in at him. They
could not beat off one of the invisible vultures of fever and pain that
hovered over him, swooped, and tore him.

They could not even get word to him--not a message of love or of
repentance or of hope. His brain was in a turmoil of its own. His white
lips were muttering delirious nonsense; his soul was fluttering from
scene to scene and year to year, like a restl