Harber nodded.  “I’ll go in.”

Barton lay in his berth, still, terribly thin, and there were two pink patches of fever burning upon his cheek-bones.  He opened his eyes with an infinite weariness as Harber entered the room, and achieved a smile.

“Hard luck, old fellow,” said Harber, crossing to him. “’Sall up!” said Barton, grinning gamely.  “I’m through.  Asked ’em to send you in.  Do something for me, Harber—­tha’s right, ain’t it—­Harber’s your name?”

“Yes.  What is it, Barton?”

Barton closed his eyes, then opened them again.

“Doggone memory—­playin’ tricks,” he apologized faintly.  “This,
Harber.  Black-leather case inside leather grip there—­by the wall. 
Money in it—­and letters.  Everything goes—­to the girl.  Nobody else. 
I know you’re straight.  Take ’em to her?”

“Yes,” said Harber.

“Good,” said Barton.  “All right, then!  Been expecting this.  All ready for it.  Name—­address—­papers—­all there.  She’ll have no trouble—­getting money.  Thanks, Harber.”  And after a pause, he added:  “Better take it now—­save trouble, you know.”

Harber got the leather case from the grip and took it at once to his own stateroom.

When he returned, Barton seemed for the moment, with the commission off his mind, a little brighter.

“No end obliged, Harber,” he murmured.

“All right,” said Harber, “but ought you to talk?”

“Won’t matter now,” said Barton grimly.  “Feel like talking now.  To-morrow may be—­too late!” And after another pause, he went on:  “The fine dreams of youth—­odd where they end, isn’t it?

“This—­and me—­so different.  So different!  Failure.  She was wise—­but she didn’t know everything.  The world was too big—­too hard for me.  ‘You can’t fail,’ she said, ‘I won’t let you fail!’ But you see——­”

Harber’s mind, slipping back down the years, with Barton, to his own parting, stopped with a jerk.

“What!” he exclaimed.

Barton seemed drifting, half conscious, half unconscious of what he was saying.  He did not appear to have heard Harber’s exclamation over the phrase so like that Janet had given him.

“We weren’t like the rest,” droned Barton.  “No—­we wanted more out of life than they did.  We couldn’t be content—­with half a loaf.  We wanted—­the bravest adventures—­the yellowest gold—­the....”

Picture that scene, if you will.  What would you have said?  Harber saw leaping up before him, with terrible clarity, as if it were etched upon his mind, that night in Tawnleytown ten years before.  It was as if Barton, in his semidelirium, were reading the words from his past!

“I won’t let you fail! ... half a loaf ... the bravest adventures ... the yellowest gold.”  Incredible thing!  That Barton and his girl should have stumbled upon so many of the phrases, the exact phrases!  And suddenly full knowledge blinded Harber....  No!  No!  He spurned it.  It couldn’t be.  And yet, he felt that if Barton were to utter one more phrase of those that Janet had said and, many, many times since, written to him, the impossible, the unbelievable, would be stark, unassailable fact.