And when the other, groaning again, said that he didn’t know, Harlan groaned, too—then crossed the room to where George sat in a crumpled attitude, touched him lightly on the shoulder, and turned away. “You’re a good fellow, McMillan, and you haven’t anything in the world to reproach yourself with. I don’t think he’s minded Lena’s going away; he hasn’t spoken of her at all, and I really believe he doesn’t think of her. Your record with Dan is all right, but I’ve been realizing that mine isn’t. I could have made success easier for him long ago; though I don’t reproach myself so much with that, because he _did_ get his success—for a while, and that’s all anybody gets—and he enjoyed it all the more for having got it without help. What I’m thinking about this morning: I seem to have spent a great part of my life saying, ‘What’s the good of it?’ as I did just now, and it’s my brother’s work I’ve been saying it about. I’ve always been ‘superior’—and I’ll never be different. I was born so, I believe, and didn’t see it in time. The most I’ve ever actually _done_ was to help organize a dilettante musical club! And Dan—well, I hope it’s as you intimated the other night on Martha’s porch—I hope Dan’s been too busy to be much bothered about my ‘judgments!’ I’ve been just nothing; but even if he falls, he’s at least been a branch of the growing tree, though we don’t know where it’s growing to, or why.” “No,” McMillan said. “We don’t know anything.” Harlan had begun to pace up and down the room. “I didn’t understand that Dan was in real trouble financially,” he said. “He’d been on the edge so often—I talked about it, but I’d got to thinking of it as a permanent thing for him to be on the edge. I didn’t realize he might actually fall _off_—not until that little Jew friend of his came to me the other morning and _made_ me realize it. Well, there’s one thing I can be thankful for: I can be grateful that all I thought of, for once in my life, was that I was Dan’s brother!” “Harlan?” Martha Shelby’s voice called him softly from the stairway. “Yes?” He turned to the door, explaining, “Dan may want me—he sends for me to come in sometimes. Perhaps you might——” He paused. “Yes,” George said, rising. “I’ll go and wire her. She might want to come. At any rate she’ll send Henry. Then I’ll come back here. I’ll be downstairs in this room, if there’s anything——” “I’ll let you know,” Harlan said, and he went upstairs to Martha. “Your mother’s been with him,” she whispered. “She and the nurse said he seemed to be trying to ask for somebody, but he was so weak, and his cough troubled him so much——” “I’ll go in and see,” he said; but he came back to her a few moments later, and told her it was for her that Dan was asking. She went into his room, sat by his bed, and put her hand gently over his on the coverlet. “Why, you’re better, Dan,” she said, as he turned his head and looked at her with eyes that cleared and grew brighter, for he recognized her.