“I’m not.  It’s all true.  I’ve cried over those articles, Dan.  I’ve petted them, and I’ve kissed his name—­oh, I’ve been silly!” She smiled at him through a sudden glimmer of tears.

Dan began to wonder if his sister, in spite of her exemplary conduct in the past, were after all going to have hysterics.  Women were especially likely to, he reflected, when they demanded the impossible.  At last he said, uncomfortably:  “Gee, I thought I was the dippy member of the family!”

“It’s our chance to help him,” she urged.  “Will you—?”

“No!  I’m sorry, Sis, but my little bit wouldn’t mean anything to him; it means everything to me.  Maybe that’s selfish—­I don’t care.  I’m as mad over Natalie as you seem to be over him.  A week’s delay can’t make any difference now—­he played and lost.  But I can’t afford to lose.  He’ll make another fortune, that’s sure—­but do you think I’ll ever find another Natalie?  No!  Don’t argue, for I won’t listen.”

He left the house abruptly, and Eliza went into the white bedroom which O’Neil had fitted up for her.  From the remotest corner of her lowest bureau drawer she drew a battered tin box, and, dividing the money it contained into two equal parts, placed one in the pockets of her mannish jacket.

It was dark when Tom Slater arrived, at the head of a group of soiled workmen whom he ushered into the parlor of the bungalow.

“Here’s the bunch!” he announced, laconically.

As the new-comers ranged themselves uncomfortably about the wall Dan Appleton entered and greeted them with his customary breeziness.

“The pay-master is busy, and Doc Gray has a surgical case,” he said, “so I’ll cash your time-checks.  Get me the box, will you, Sis?”

He had avoided Eliza’s eyes upon entering, and he avoided them now, but the girl’s throat was aching as she hurried into her bedroom and hastily replaced the rolls of greenbacks she had removed from the tin box.

When he had finished paying off, Dan said, brusquely: 

“Now we mustn’t have any loafing around town, understand?”

“We can’t get back to-night,” said one of the men.

“Oh yes, you can.  I ordered an engine out.”

“We hear—­there’s talk about quitting work,” another ventured.  “Where’s O’Neil?”

“He’s in the States buying a steamship,” answered Dan, unblushingly.  “We can’t get stuff fast enough by the regular boats.”

“Good!  That sounds like business.  We don’t want to quit.”

“Now hurry!  Your parlor-car is waiting.”

When he and Eliza were alone he turned to her with a flush of embarrassment.  “Aren’t we the darnedest fools, Sis?  I wouldn’t mind if we had done the chief any good, but we haven’t.”  He closed the lid of the tin box, which was nearly empty now, and pushed it away from him, laughing mirthlessly.  “Hide that sarcophagus where I can’t see it,” he commanded.  “It makes me sick.”