enough, asked for you. Will you go up? I
really think you'd better."

But George shrank from the thought.

"I don't want to be scolded by a man who is possibly dying."

"Let's hope not," Lambert said. "You'll go. Around five o'clock."

George hesitated.

"Did he ask for Sylvia?"

"He didn't ask me, but I telephoned her."

"Why?" George asked, sharply.

"Every card on the table now, George!" Lambert warned. "We have to think
of the future, in case----"

"Of course, you're right," George answered. "I'm sorry, and I'll go."

When he entered the Dalrymple house at five o'clock he came face to face
with Sylvia in the hall. He had never seen her so controlled, and her
quiet tensity frightened him.

"Lambert told me," she whispered, "you were coming now. Dolly hasn't
asked for me, but I'd feel so much better--if things should turn out
badly, for I'm thinking with all my heart of the boy I used to be so
fond of, and it's, perhaps, my fault----"

"It is not your fault," George cried. "He's always asked for it. Lambert
will tell you that."

George relaxed. Dalrymple's mother came down the stairs with the doctor,
and George experienced a quick sympathy for the retiring, elderly woman
he had scarcely seen before. She gave Sylvia her hand, while George
stepped out with the physician. In reply to George's questions the quiet
man shook his head and frowned.

"If it were any one else of the same age--I've attended in this house
many years, Mr. Morton, and I've watched him since he was a child. I've
marvelled how he's got so far."

He added brutally:

"Scarcely a chance with the turn its taking."

"If there's anything," George muttered, "any great specialist
anywhere----Understand money doesn't figure----"

"Everything possible is being done, Mr. Morton. I'm truly sorry, but I
can tell you it's quite his own fault."

So even this cold-blooded practitioner had heard the talk, and
sympathized, and not with Dalrymple. A trifle dazed George reentered the
house.

"It's good of you to come, Mr. Morton," Mrs. Dalrymple said. "Shall we
go upstairs now?"

There was no bitterness in her voice, and she had taken Sylvia's hand,
yet undoubtedly she knew everything. Abruptly George felt sorrier for
Dalrymple than he had ever done.

"Please wait, Sylvia," she said.

He followed Mrs. Dalrymple upstairs and into the sick-room.

"It's Mr. Morton, dear."

She beckoned to the nurse, and George remained in the room alone wi