Simple masculine indignation rose within him:  she was to have been his sister.  If she had been unable to stifle this misplaced love of hers, could she not at least have kept it to herself?  Laura, the self-respecting!  No; she offered it—­offered it to her sister’s betrothed.  She had written that he should “never, never know it”; that when she was “cured” she would burn the ledger.  She had not burned it!  There were inconsistencies in plenty in the pitiful screed, but these were the wildest—­and the cheapest.  In talk, she had urged him to “keep trying,” for Cora, and now the sick-minded creature sent him this record.  She wanted him to know.  Then what else was it but a plea?  “I love you.  Let Cora go.  Take me.”

He began to walk up and down, wondering what was to be done.  After a time, he picked up the book gingerly, set it upon a shelf in a dark corner, and went for a walk outdoors.  The night air seemed better than that of the room that held the ledger.

At the corner a boy, running, passed him.  It was Hedrick Madison, but Hedrick did not recognize Richard, nor was his mind at that moment concerned with Richard’s affairs; he was on an errand of haste to Doctor Sloane.  Mr. Madison had wakened from a heavy slumber unable to speak, his condition obviously much worse.

Hedrick returned in the doctor’s car, and then hung uneasily about the door of the sick-room until Laura came out and told him to go to bed.  In the morning, his mother did not appear at the breakfast table, Cora was serious and quiet, and Laura said that he need not go to school that day, though she added that the doctor thought their father would get “better.”  She looked wan and hollow-eyed:  she had not been to bed, but declared that she would rest after breakfast.  Evidently she had not missed her ledger; and Hedrick watched her closely, a pleasurable excitement stirring in his breast.

She did not go to her room after the meal; the house was cold, possessing no furnace, and, with Hedrick’s assistance, she carried out the ashes from the library grate, and built a fire there.  She had just lighted it, and the kindling was beginning to crackle, glowing rosily over her tired face, when the bell rang.

“Will you see who it is, please, Hedrick?”

He went with alacrity, and, returning, announced in an odd voice.  “It’s Dick Lindley.  He wants to see you.”

“Me?” she murmured, wanly surprised.  She was kneeling before the fireplace, wearing an old dress which was dusted with ashes, and upon her hands a pair of worn-out gloves of her father’s.  Lindley appeared in the hall behind Hedrick, carrying under his arm something wrapped in brown paper.  His expression led her to think that he had heard of her father’s relapse, and came on that account.

“Don’t look at me, Richard,” she said, smiling faintly as she rose, and stripping her hands of the clumsy gloves.  “It’s good of you to come, though.  Doctor Sloane thinks he is going to be better again.”