Mr. Underwood, who had left the room to telephone for a physician,
returned with a faithful servant, and insisted upon Darrell's retiring
to bed without delay, a proposition which the latter was only too glad
to follow. Darrell had already given Mr. Underwood the package of
fifteen thousand dollars found on the train, and now, while disrobing,
handed him the belt in which he carried his own money, saying,-"I'll put this in your keeping for a few days, till I feel more like
myself. I lost my watch and some change, but I took the precaution to
have this hidden."
He stopped abruptly and seemed to be trying to recall something, then
continued, slowly,-"There was something else in connection with that affair which I wished
to say to you, but my head is so confused I cannot think what it was."
"Don't try to think now; it will come to you by and by," Mr. Underwood
replied. "You're in good hands, so don't worry yourself about anything,
but get all the rest you can."
With a deep sigh of relief Darrell sank on the pillows, and was soon
sleeping heavily.
A few moments later Mr. Underwood, coming from Darrell's room, having
left the servant in charge, met his sister coming down the long hall.
She beckoned, and, turning, slowly retraced her steps, her brother
following, to another part of the house, where they entered a darkened
chamber and together stood beside a low, narrow couch strewn with
fragrant flowers. Together, without a word or a tear, they gazed on the
peaceful face of this sleeper, wrapped in the breathless, dreamless
slumber we call death. They recalled the years since he had come to
them, the dying bequest of their youngest sister, a little,
golden-haired prattler, to fill their home with the music of his
childish voice and the sunshine of his smile. Already the great house
seemed strangely silent without his ringing laughter, his bursts of
merry song.
But of whatever bitter grief stirred their hearts, this silent brother
and sister, so long accustomed to self-restraint and self-repression,
gave no sign. Gently she replaced the covering over the face of the
sleeper, and silently they left the room. Not until they again reached
the door of Darrell's room was the silence broken; then the brother
said, in low tones,-"Marcia, we've done all for the dead that can be done; it's the living
who needs our care now."
"Yes," she replied, quietly, "I was going to see what I could do for him
when you had put him to bed."
"Bennett is in there now, and I'm going downstairs to wait for Dr.
Bradley; he telephoned that he'd be up in twenty minutes."
"Very well; I'll sit by him till the doctor comes."