A couple of hours! If he had said a couple of years, the words could have brought, it seemed, no deeper sense of desolation. Hardly had he gone, however, when the door-bell rang, and word was brought to Lois, who with Dosia had gone up-stairs, that it was Mr. Harker from the typometer office. The visitor, a tall, colorless, darkly sack-coated man, with a jaded necktie, had entered the little drawing-room with a decorously self-effacing step, and sat now on the edge of his chair, his body bent forward and his hat still held in one hand, with an effect of being entirely isolated from social relations and existing here solely at the behest of business. He rose as Lois came into the room, and handed her a small packet, in response to her greeting, before reseating himself. "Thank you very much," said Lois. "This is the money, I suppose. I'm sorry you went to the trouble of bringing it out yourself. I thought you might send me out a check." Mr. Harker shook his head with a grim semblance of a smile. "That's the trouble, Mrs. Alexander. We can't send any checks. Mr. Alexander is the one who does that. Everything is in Mr. Alexander's name. I went to Mr. Leverich to-day to see how we were going to straighten out things; but he doesn't seem inclined to take hold at all, though he could help us out easily enough if he wanted to. I--there's no use keeping it back, Mrs. Alexander. This is a pretty bad time for Mr. Alexander to stay away. He ought to be home." "Why, yes," said Lois. "Exactly. His absence places us all in a very strange, very unpleasant position." Mr. Harker spoke with a sort of somber monotony, with his gaze on the ground. "The business requires the most particular management at the moment--the most particular. I--" He raised his eyes with such tragic earnestness that Lois realized for the first time that this manner of his might not be his usual manner, but was called forth by the stress of anxiety. For the first time also, the force of the daily tie of business companionship was borne in upon her. She looked at Mr. Harker. This man spent more waking hours with Justin than she did--knew him, perhaps, in a sense, better. He went on now, with a tremor in his voice: "Mrs. Alexander, your husband and I have worked together for a year and a half now, with never a word between us. I'm ready to swear by him any moment, if I've got him to swear by. I'll back him up in anything, no matter what, if it's his say-so. We've pulled through a good many tight places. But I can't do it alone; it's madness to try. If he doesn't show up, I'd better close the place down at once." "Why do you say this to me?" asked Lois, shrinking a little.