Mrs. Porter knelt by her friend and held her hands. "What can I do for you?" she asked. "Look in the desk over in that corner, and find the time-tables in the drawer." "I know the Chicago trains, Miss Barry. Let me arrange it all for you. You wish to leave to-night?" Miss Barry nodded without speech. Mrs. Porter went out on the piazza and sent Jerry to telegraph, telling him to return. "Did you know my brother was ill?" asked Belinda, when she returned, still without moving. "No. I thought him just overtired." The other nodded. "That's the way they do it. Rush madly after money and more money till they go to pieces all of a sudden." The bereft sister's eyes were fixed on space, seeing who knows what pictures of the past, when a barefooted boy romped with her over these rocks that held the nest he had given her. Suddenly her far-away look came back, and focused on the pitiful eyes regarding her drawn, pale face. "I'm glad you're here," she said simply. "And I am so glad," responded the other, her thoughts busy with Linda and Bertram, and longing to fly to them. "Will you stay here in my cottage till I come back? I have a little girl that comes every day to help. She cooks pretty well. She'll stay with you." "Yes, Miss Barry." It was on the tip of the visitor's tongue to say, "You'll bring Linda back with you," but she restrained the words. This common sorrow would do its work between aunt and niece, she felt sure. There was no further inaction. A trunk was packed, and Mrs. Porter accompanied the traveler as far as Portland, spending the night again at the hotel where she had left her belongings; and Miss Barry pursued her sad journey. Henry Radcliffe met her at the station in Chicago; and when they were in the motor Miss Barry turned to him with dim eyes. "What was the matter with Lambert?" His pale face looked excited and sleepless. "You haven't seen the papers?" "No. My head ached and I didn't read them. What do you mean?" Her voice grew tense. "Barry & Co. have gone to pieces." "What do I care for that? Lambert! My brother! Tell me of him!" "But it carried a lot of innocent ones down in the crash." "Oh, my poor brother! What of him, Henry? Tell me. Tell me." The young man turned his head away, and his voice grew thick. "He died down in the office." "Heart trouble?" "Yes. He never told us if he knew he had a weak heart. The shock was terrible." The young man took his companion's groping hand. "Linda is prostrated. We have had to save her in every way. Poor Harriet! She has had to be a heroine." The speaker's voice thickened and choked again, and hand in hand the two kept an unbroken silence until the motor drew up before the house on Michigan Avenue, where lilies and ferns hung against the heavy door. CHAPTER VII THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED