"Hugh isn't feeling very well," said Mrs. Blair. "He came home from the office this afternoon and didn't want anything for supper."
"Let me have a look at him," said Doctor Stevens. "Suppose his stomach is out of whack or something like that."
Tom and Helen, standing in the dining room, watched Doctor Stevens and their mother go down the hall to their father's bedroom.
The next half hour was one of the longest in their young lives. Tom tried to read the continued story in the _Herald_, while Helen fussed at first one thing and then another.
The door of their father's room finally opened and Doctor Stevens summoned them.
Neither Tom nor Helen would ever forget the scene in their father's bedroom that night. Their mother, seated at the far side of the bed, looked at them through tear-dimmed eyes.
Their father, reclining on the bed, looked taller than ever, and the lines of pain which Helen had noticed in his face that afternoon had deepened. His hands were moving nervously and his eyes were bright with fever.
"Sit down," said Doctor Stevens as he took a chair beside Hugh Blair's bed.
Tom was about to ask his father how he felt, when Doctor Stevens spoke again.
"We might as well face this thing together," he said. "I'll tell you now that it is going to be something of a fight for all of you, but unless I'm mistaken, the Blairs are all real fighters."
"What's the matter Doctor Stevens?" Helen's voice was low and strained.
"Your father must take a thorough rest," he said. "He will have to go to some southwestern state for a number of months. Perhaps it will only take six months, but it may be longer."
"But I can't be away that long," protested Hugh Blair. "I must think of my family, of the _Herald_."
"Your family must think of you now," said Doctor Stevens firmly. "That's why I wanted to talk this over with Tom and Helen."
"Lung trouble," he said quietly. "Your father has spent too many years bent over his desk in that dark cubbyhole of his--too many years without a vacation. Now he's got to give that up and devote a number of months to building up his body again."
Helen felt the blood racing through her body. Her throat went dry and her head ached. She had realized only that afternoon that her father wasn't well but she had not been prepared for Doctor Stevens' announcement.