"If you should be right, he must be horribly worried about his affairs. I’ll just say a word to relieve his mind." Then speaking slowly and distinctly I gave a brief account of the course of the markets, dwelt on the success of the syndicate in sustaining the business fabric, and hinted at the need for more money on the morrow. There was no physical response. If there was an intelligent brain in that inert body, it found no servant at its call among the flaccid muscles, and not even the moving of an eyelid gave sign that I was understood. Yet as I spoke, there came somewhere in my consciousness the conviction that I was heard, and that my words had brought relief to an overstrained mind. Laura Kendrick looked quickly from the face of her uncle to mine, and a sudden light sprang into her eyes. "You felt it, too," she said. "Yes." "You have done good; but you mustn’t stay here any longer. Don’t leave the house, though, unless you have to. I shall be afraid when you are gone." As she opened the door to banish me from the sick-room, a servant had just raised his hand to tap at the panel. "What is it?" she asked. "A man to see Mr. Hampden. I took him into the library." *CHAPTER XXVII* *A CALL TO ARMS* I followed the servant and was surprised to find Clark uneasily seated on the edge of a cushioned chair, nervously twisting his hat, and looking as though he was afraid he was going to break something. "I’m sorry to bother you here," he said awkwardly, "but things have come to a head." "What is it now? Do you think that to-night’s meeting is going to make more trouble than the other one did?" "Well, no, sir. The meeting don’t amount to much. To tell you the truth, sir, the meeting is only a blind. Parks got out the notices, and he’s going to make a speech. But he’s the only one of the Council’s people who will be there. The others are down at headquarters getting ready for the real work of the night." "The real work? What do you mean by that?" "Well, the truth of the business is," said Clark, "that the rifle clubs are to be called out to-night. Orders have gone out to all the Council’s clubs to assemble at eleven. At twelve they will be given their guns, and then they will be sent out to seize the city. One company is to take possession of the City Hall; another will take the Committee of Safety’s headquarters; and others the National Guard Armories, the Mint, the Subtreasury, and so on." "Are they crazy? Why, the Committee of Safety has fifteen thousand men enrolled by this time."