nt for Dr. Wright. It is a bad case of
enteric, mixed with some trouble with the brain. He appears to be
suffering from nervous shock, they say, increased by a long strain
of anxiety."

Half an hour later, he was called from Weldon's room to speak to his
wife at the telephone.

"Yes," he answered her. "It is as bad as I heard, as bad as it can
be. You think so? Are you strong enough? Sure? Hold the wire, then,
till I ask the doctor." The interval was short; and he went on
again, "The doctor says he can be moved now, but not later. It may
be a matter of weeks. How soon can you be ready? Very well. Will you
be sure to save yourself all you can? In an hour, then. And the
doctor will have a nurse waiting there? And can you put the boy into
some corner? He would be frantic, if we tried to leave him behind.
Very well. Yes." And the telephone rang off.

It was midnight before the Dent household was fully reconstructed.
Upstairs in the great eastern front room, a white-capped nurse was
bending above the unconscious man in the bed; downstairs in the
kitchen, the tears of Kruger Bobs were mingling with the cold roast
beef on the table before him. The doctor had just gone away, and in
the room underneath the sickroom, Mr. Dent and his wife were quietly
laying plans to meet the needs of the changed routine which had
fallen upon their home. He looked up, as Ethel came slowly into the
room.

"By the way, Ethel, I forgot to ask you before; but did you find
your pin?"

She looked at him wonderingly. Her face was pale and drawn; but her
eyes were shining like the gems she had professed to miss.

"What pin do you mean?" she asked blankly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Don't wait any longer, Carew. Really, it's not worth while."

"Too late for us to part company now," Carew answered serenely.

"I know. You've stood by me like a good fellow; but it will be some
time yet before I can sail. And you know you are in a hurry to get
away."

"Don't be too sure of that," Carew advised him. "All my good things
aren't at one end of the world."

Weldon's lips curled into the ghost of his old smile.

"Then take one of them along with you," he suggested.

Elbows on knees and chin on fists joined knuckle to knuckle, Carew
turned and smiled blandly down at the face on the pillow.

"Weldon, for a man who has been off his head for a month, you do
have singularly wise ideas. But do you suppose she'd go?"

"Which?"

"Miss Mellen, of