Would--would you mind not speaking loud?
I--I wouldn't like her to know." "Her ?" said Jimmie Dale softly.
The boy tiptoed across the room, opened a connecting door a little, peered inside, opened it a little wider--and looked over his shoulder at Jimmie Dale.
Jimmie Dale crossed to the boy, looked inside the other room--and his lip twitched queerly, as the sight sent a quick, hurt throb through his heart.

A young woman, younger than the boy, lay on a tumble-down bed, a rag of clothing over her--her face with a deathlike pallor upon it, as she lay in what appeared to be a stupor.

She was ill, critically ill; it needed no trained eye to discern a fact all too apparent to the most casual observer.

The squalor, the glaring poverty here, was even more pitifully in evidence than in the other room--only here upon a chair beside the bed was a cluster of medicine bottles and a little heap of fruit.
Jimmie Dale drew back silently as the boy closed the door.
Hagan walked to the table and picked up his hat.
"I'm--I'm ready," he said brokenly.

"Let's go." "Just a minute," said Jimmie Dale.