The cry for help went up from the Harris-Ingram mills, but their trusted
leader was powerless. George Ingram lay insensible at death's door, the
victim of pneumonia. For a week, the directors of the steel company
struggled night and day with their difficulties. Gertrude could neither
leave the bedside of her dying husband, nor would she give her consent to
have the Harris-Ingram Experiment wrecked. She had already pledged as
collateral for the creditors of the steel company all their stock and
personal property, and had telephoned the directors to keep the company
afloat another day, if in their power.
The ablest physicians of the city were standing at George Ingram's
bedside in despair, as all hope of his recovery had vanished. Gertrude
stepped aside into her library, and was in the very agony of prayer for
help, when in rushed her brother Alfonso, whom the family believed dead.
He had come from California with his wife, and stopping at the company's
office, had learned of the terrible trouble of his family.
Lifting up his broken-hearted sister, who for a moment thought that
she had met her brother on the threshold of the other world, he kissed
Gertrude and said, "Be brave, go back to your husband, and trust your
brother to look after the steel company's matters.
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