"
The air quivered with the quick pulsations of the locomotive of a passing
suburban train. As it moved away Brower heard again the voice of Bingham
slow, grave, earnest--a voice of warning and alarm, one might have
thought.
"Some of them are here for years before they take out their papers,"
rejoined Brower. "And lots of them never take them out at all."
"I don't know what's to be done," said Marshall, with a fretful anxiety.
"I've given up coffee; some tell me that I ought to give up smoking, too,
but others say it really doesn't make any difference. But I must do
something; I must have better rest.
"I can't work without my sleep, and I--I can't let myself fail--now."
Jane was speaking once again--more steadily, more coolly, more
composedly, it seemed. "Poor pa;--it can't be so serious as that," the
listener thought he understood her to say.
"I've heard of bromine," said Brower. "That's simpler, isn't it--and
safer?" Jane's voice had ceased, and silence maintained its sway within.
"She will meet all his family," the old gentleman went on. "She seems to
expect to find them very fine people--finer than any we have here. And
she will see the place where they live--a very much handsomer place, I
make out, than any in this part of the world." A drawn and weary smile
passed lightly over his face.
There was a movement in the bay-window, and presently a solid footstep in
the hall.
"There's nothing like finding things out for yourself," said Brower,
colorlessly.
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