Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/172



RESENTLY the young man was standing again, but looking down through tears, and realizing how very much his every plan for the future and every responsibility he had assumed rested on this figure that now was still and this brain that now was numb. He perceived that under every share of stock, under every bond, under every plan and hope for the future of his work, rested the inventive and constructive brain of Milton Morris. It was that which had underwritten all—all; and now that was substracted from him.

Yet, as George Judson stood thus with weeping eyes, he felt oddly a sort of new strength being built into him like the steel reënforcement in setting concrete—felt his shoulders lifting and squaring under the added responsibilities—heard a voice saying to him: "You can go on. You can carry the double load. You can build somebody into the place of Milton Morris. You can and you will!"

George Judson heard this voice and believed it. He looked down upon these marble features on the pillow as at something past and gone.