Out in the upper hall Aunt Clara, who had crept out of the room lest the relief of seeing the lad alive, and the wonder of watching Syl’s mother smile at her boy like that, should make the sob in her own throat burst out, ran blindly into a figure at the top of the stairs. "Oh, he’s come to!" she whispered loudly. "He has? Thank the Lord!" came back in another joyful whisper. "But he must be awfully hurt, just the same. We can’t know till the doctors come. Don’t you suppose it must be time for them now?" "I don’t know. Who’s with him?" "His mother and that angel Jim. I never saw anybody like Jim Dent. He’s the dearest fellow, so cool and cheerful, thinks of everything and everybody. No wonder Stephen adores him." "Thank you, Clara," whispered the other woman. Clara hastily wiped her eyes. The hall was dim and her eyes had been thick with tears. She had been exchanging whispers with Isabel. It didn’t matter. She was glad of it. The mother of Jim Dent deserved recognition, if she had said her kitchen was hot in summer. Clara put out her arms. Isabel came into them. Clara’s plump cheek touched Isabel’s thin shoulder. Isabel’s hand patted Clara’s back. Jim Dent opened the door. Seeing the affair outside he closed it again and went to find something he wanted, by a different exit. His anxiety was still great, but a side issue like this one must not be upset. But by the second exit he found somebody else in his path. All the beautiful colour shaken out of her cheeks, her dark eyes wide with alarm, her lips pressed tight together in her effort at self-control, young Syl’s sister, Anne, caught at Jim Dent’s capable, blue-serge arm. She said not a word, but he answered her as if she had spoken: "He’s opened his eyes, dear. That means a good deal, I’m sure. Keep cool." "If I could only _do_ something!" "You can—what we’re all doing." "Oh, _yes_!" breathed little Anne. "O Jim!—do you think it helps—really?" "Know it," asserted Jim Dent, as confidently as he had ever said anything in his life. He smiled at her and hurried on. That smile of his had been known to win games for his college teams which had been all but lost—why shouldn’t it cheer a frightened girl and encourage her to go on doing that one thing which was the only thing she could do, and which Jim Dent was so sure would help? The gray roadster came down the road at a speed which barely allowed it to slacken in time to make the curve at the gateway. It missed the stone post on the left by the width of a tenpenny nail. Sylvester, in the rumble, turned not a hair. Thirty miles of driving, with Sam’s hand on the steering-wheel, had brought Sylvester to a condition of temporary paralysis as regarded danger. The three of them were in the house in less time than it takes to tell it, Dr. Wilford Graham propelled by a hand on each arm. It would have been difficult for him to say which of his companions seemed the more eager to get him up the stairs.