ut if his pulse weakens we must shake him awake somehow.
You needn't wait I'll call you if I want you, You've told me what I
wanted to know."

Again Jack bent over Garry, his heart wrung with pity and dismay. He was
still there when the door opened softly and a servant entered, tiptoed
to where he stood, and whispered in his ear:

"Mrs. Minott says, sir, that Mr. McGowan and another man are
downstairs."

The contractor was standing in the hall, his hat still on his head.
The other man Jack recognized as Murphy, one of the church building
trustees. That McGowan was in an ugly mood was evident from the
expression on his face, his jaw setting tighter when he discovered
that Jack and not Garry was coming down to meet him; Jack having been
associated with MacFarlane, who had "robbed him of damages" to the
"fill."

"I came to see Mr. Minott," McGowan blurted out before Jack's feet had
touched the bottom step of the stairs. "I hear he's in--come home at
dinner time."

Jack continued his advance without answering until he had reached their
side. Then with a "Good-evening, gentlemen," he said in a perfectly even
voice:

"Mr. Minott is ill and can see no one. I have just left the doctor
sitting beside his bed. If there is anything I can do for either of you
I will do it with pleasure."

McGowan shoved his hat back on his forehead as if to give himself more
air.

"That kind of guff won't go with me no longer," he snarled, his face
growing redder every instant. "This ill business is played out. He
promised me three nights ago he'd make out a certificate next day--you
heard him say it--and I waited for him all the morning and he never
showed up. And then he sneaks off to New York at daylight and stays away
for two nights more, and then sneaks home again in the middle of the day
when you don't expect him, and goes to bed and sends for the doctor.
How many kinds of a damned fool does he take me for? That work's been
finished three weeks yesterday; the money is all in the bank to pay
for it just as soon as he signs the check, and he don't sign it, and ye
can't get him to sign it. Ain't that so, Jim Murphy?"

Murphy nodded, and McGowan blazed on: "If you want to know what I think
about it--there's something crooked about the whole business, and it
gets crookeder all the time. He's drunk, if he's anything--boiling drunk
and--"

Jack laid the full weight of his hand on the speaker's shoulder:

"Stop short off where you are