be much longer, and we'll hear their verdict soon. I'm
trying to hope for the best, Thurston, knowing it can't be good all the
time. This has been a blow to me. You see we were a one-man family,
and it was Julius who started off all the rest of us. He must have
been mighty sick of us several times after he married, but he never
showed a sign of impatience. What a man he was--tireless,
indefatigable, nothing too big for him--until his wife died. Then all
the grit seemed to melt right out of him, and during the last few years
I knew, what mighty few people besides yourself know now, that Julius
was just a shadow of what he had been. He held all the wires in his
own hands too long, and, as he hadn't an understudy with the grit to
act by himself, I was glad when he took hold of you."

"He has always been a generous and considerate employer," interposed
Geoffrey. "But I had better leave you. I hear the doctors coming."

Savine laid a detaining grasp upon his arm with the words: "I want you
right here. It's your concern as well as mine."

The two doctors entered, and the one from Vancouver said:

"I will let my colleague express his opinion, and may say that our
patient admitted to him a complicating weakness which I had suspected.
I wish we had better news to give you, but while it was your brother's
wish that Mr. Thurston should know, I should almost prefer first to
communicate with his own family."

"You can both speak right out; only be quick about it," Thomas Savine
told him.

"It is tolerably simple, and while I sympathize with you, I must not
disguise the truth," said the keen-eyed, lean-faced American. "Though
Mr. Savine will partly recover from this attack, his career as an
active man is closed. His heart may hold out a few years longer, if
you follow my instructions, or it may at any time fail him--if he
worries over anything, it certainly will. In any case, he will never
be strong again. Mental powers and physical vigor have been reduced to
the lowest level by over-work and excessive, if intermittent,
indulgence in what I may call a very devilish drug--a particular
Chinese preparation of opium, not generally known even on this
opium-consuming coast. Under its influence he may still be capable of
spasmodic fits of energy, but while each dose will assist towards his
dissolution, I dare not--at this stage--recommend complete deprivation.
I have arranged with your own adviser as to the best treatm