I'd surely have left the old school and come before if I'd heard. I
wouldn't have cared _what_ Aunt Bell said."

"Eight weeks down, and you know we found he'd been sick long before he
found it out himself--walking typhoid, they called it. He came home from
college with me Easter week, and Dr. Merritt put him to bed the moment he
clapped eyes on him. Said it was walking typhoid, and that he must have
been worrying greatly about something, because his nervous system was all
run down."

"And he was very ill?"

"Doctor Merritt says he went as far as a man can go and get back at all."

"How dreadful--poor Bernal! Oh, if he _had_ died!"

"Out of his head for three weeks at a time--raving fearfully. And you
know, he's quite like an infant now--says the simplest things. He laughs
at it himself. He says he's not sure if he knows how to read and write."

"Poor, dear Bernal!"

With some sudden arousing he studied her face swiftly as she spoke, then
continued:

"Yes, Bernal's really an awfully good chap at bottom." He turned again to
look up at the study windows. "You know, I intend to stand by that fellow
always--no matter _what_ he does! Of course, I shall not let his being my
brother blind me to his faults--doubtless we _all_ have faults; but I tell
you, Nancy, a good heart atones for many things in a man's make-up."