They all went up together to the third story presently, and stood in the swept and garnished front room, Mr. Copley going over to the bureau and touching with a tender movement of caress the picture of his wife that stood there and then looking toward the empty white bed with a wistful anxiety. Cornelia could almost read the words of his heart, and into her own there entered the burden of her brother, and she knew she would never rest in her own selfish ease again until she felt sure that Carey was all right. She crept into bed beside Louise at last, almost too weary to pull up the covers; and let the little girl snuggle thankfully into her arms. “You’re almost—almost like my dear muvver,” murmured Louise sleepily, nosing into her neck and settling down on her sister’s arm with a sigh of content; and Cornelia thought how sweet it was to have a little sister to love and be loved by, and wondered how it was that she had dreaded having her for a roommate. Then, too weary to think any longer, she fell asleep. Hours afterward, it seemed, she was awakened by a stumbling footstep up the stairs, halting and fumbling about in the hall, and then going on, stumbling again, up to the third story. She heard a low muttering, too, and it frightened her. Had Carey been drinking? A strange, rank smell of cigarette smoke—and more—drifted into the door which had been left ajar; and a cold frenzy took hold of her heart. Carey had been drinking! She felt sure. A moment more, and she heard light footsteps from the little hall bedroom above, and Harry’s indignant young voice remonstrating, the sounds of a brief struggle, the thud of a heavy body on the bedsprings above, and then Harry’s voice coming clearly down the stairs in disgust as he pattered back to his hard little cot. “Ow! You great big fish, you! You oughtta be ashamed of yourself!” It was hours after that that Cornelia finally fell asleep again, and during those hours she found herself praying involuntarily, praying and pleading: “O God, help me to help Carey. Don’t let Carey be a drunkard. Don’t let him be wild and bad! Help him to want to be good and right. Help him to be a man. O God, help me to do something about it!” CHAPTER VII The first thing of which Cornelia was conscious in the morning was a scuffle overhead. Louise was sitting up, rubbing her eyes and looking apprehensively toward the ceiling; and the sounds grew louder and more vigorous, with now and then a heavy thud, like a booted foot dropping inertly to the floor. Cornelia sat up also, and listened. “It’s Harry, trying to wake Carey up!” whispered Louise knowingly. “Harry’s mad. I guess Carey came in late again, and didn’t undress. He does that way sometimes when he’s tired.” “Yes?” said Cornelia with a shiver of understanding. “Yes, I heard him come in.”