It was now ten o’clock and the day seemed to him cruelly brief for the work he had to do. He entered the office and almost the first thing he saw on his desk was the following letter addressed to him, but written in a disguised hand:

Mr. Hardy:

Us in the casting-room don’t need no looking after but maybe the next pot of hot iron that explodes will be next the offis if you thinks we have bodies but no sols some morning you will wake unbelieving another thing. Better look to house and emply spesul patrol; if you do we will blak his face for him.

There was no signature to this threatening scrawl which was purposely misspelled and ungrammatically composed. Mr. Hardy had received threats before and paid little attention to them. He prided himself on his steady nerves and his contempt of all such methods used to scare him. Only a coward, he reasoned; would ever write an anonymous letter of such a character. Still, this morning he felt disturbed. His peculiar circumstances made the whole situation take on a more vivid coloring. Besides all that, he could not escape the conviction that he was in a certain sense responsible for the accident in the casting-room. It was not his particular business to inspect machinery. But his attention had been called to it, and he felt now as if he had been criminally careless in not making the inspection in the absence of the regular officer. An investigation of the accident would free Mr. Hardy from legal responsibility. But in the sight of God he felt that he was morally guilty. At this moment Mr. Burns came in. He looked sullen and spoke in a low tone.

“Only half the men are back this morning, sir. Scoville’s death and the injuries of the others have had a bad effect on the men.”

Mr. Hardy crumpled the letter nervously in his hand.

“Mr. Burns, I would like to apologize to you for my neglect of the injured men. Who are they and how badly are they hurt?”

Burns looked surprised but answer describing briefly the accidents. Mr. Hardy listened intently with bowed head. At last he looked up and said abruptly:

“Come into the casting-room.”

They went out of the office, passed through the repairing shops and entered the foundry department. Even on that bright winter morning, with the air outside so clear and cool, the atmosphere in this place was murky and close. The forges in the blacksmith room at the farther end glowed through the smoke and dust like smouldering piles of rubbish dumped here and there by chance upon some desolate moor and stirred by ill-omened demons of the nether world. Mr. Hardy shuddered as he thought of standing in such an atmosphere all day to work at severe muscular toil. He recalled with a sharp vividness a request made only two months before for dust fans which had proved successful in other shops, and which would remove a large part of the heavy, coal-laden air, supplying fresh air in its place. The company had refused the request, and had even said through one of its officers that when the men wore out, the company could easily get more. Mr. Hardy and the foreman paused at the entrance to the casting-room where the men had been injured the day before. A few men were working sullenly. Mr. Hardy asked the foreman to call the men together near the other end of the room; he wanted to say something to them. He walked over there while the foreman spoke to the men. They dropped their tools and come over to where Mr. Hardy was standing. They were a hard-looking crowd. Then he said very slowly and distinctly:

“You may quit work until after Scoville’s funeral. The machinery here needs overhauling.”

The men stood impassive for a moment. Finally a big Dane stepped up and said:

“We be no minded to quit work these times. We no can afford it. Give us work in some other place.”

Mr. Hardy looked at him and replied quietly:

“The wages will go on just the same while you are out.”

There was a perceptible stir among the men. They looked confused and incredulous. Mr. Hardy still looked at them thoughtfully. Finally the big Dane stepped forward again and said, speaking more respectfully than he did at first:

Mr. Hardy, we be thinking maybe you would like to help towards him the family of the dead and others as be hurt. I been pointed to take up purse for poor fellows injured. We all take hand in’t. My brother be one lose his two eyes.”

A tear actually rolled down the grimy cheek of the big fellow and dropped into the coal dust at his feet. Mr. Hardy realized that he was looking at a brother man. He choked down a sob, and putting his hand in his pocket pulled out all the change he had and poured it into the Dane’s hand. Then seeing that it was only four or five dollars, he pulled out his purse and emptied that of its bills, while Burns, the foreman and all the men looked on in stupefied wonder.

“No, no thanks! I’ll do something more.”

Mr. Hardy walked away feeling as if the ground was heaving under him. What was all his money compared with that life that had been sacrificed in that gas-poisoned sepulcher! He could not banish from his mind the picture of that face as it looked to him when he drew back the sheet and looked at it. He hurried back to the office through the yard and sat down at the well-worn desk. The mail had com in and half a dozen letters lay there. He looked at them and shuddered. What did it all amount to, this grind of business, when the heart-ache of the world called for so much sympathy! Then over him came the sense of his obligations to his family, Clara’s need of a father’s help, George going to the bad, Alice in need of sympathy, his wife weeping even now at home, the church and Sunday-school where he had been of such little use, the family of Scoville to be provided for, the other injured men to be visited, improvements for the welfare of the men in the shops to be looked after, and the routine of his business; all these things crowded in upon him, and still he saw the Face and heard the Voice of Eternity, “Seven days more to live!”

He sank into a revery for a moment. He was roused by the sounding of the noon whistle. What, noon already? So swiftly had the time gone. He turned to his desk bewildered and picked up his letters, glanced over them hurriedly, and gave directions for the answers of some of them to his impatient clerk who had been wondering at his employer’s strange behavior this morning. Among the letters was one which made his cheek burn with self-reproach. It was an invitation to a club dinner to be given that evening in honor of some visiting railroad president.

It was just such an occasion as he had enjoyed very many times before, and the recollection brought to mind the number of times he had gone away from his own home and left his wife sitting drearily by the fire. How could he have done it! He tossed the gilded invitation fiercely into the waste basket and rising, walked his room thinking, thinking. He had so much to do and so little time to do it in. He thought thus a moment, then went out and walked rapidly over to the hotel where he was in the habit of getting lunch when he did not go home. He ate a little, hurriedly, and then hastened out. As he was going out upon the sidewalk two young men came in and jostled against him. They were smoking and talking in a loud tone. Mr. Hardy caught the sound of his own name. He looked at the speaker, and it was the face of the young man he had seen in his dream, the one who had insulted George and struck him afterwards. For a moment Mr. Hardy was tempted to confront the youth and inquire into his son’s habits.

“No,” he said to himself after a pause, “I will have a good talk with George himself. That will be the best.” He hurried back to the office and arranged some necessary work for his clerk, took a walk through the other office, then went to the telephone and called up the superintendent of the Sunday-school, who was a bookkeeper in a clothing house. He felt an intense desire to arrange for an interview with him as soon as possible. Word came back from the house that the superintendent had been called out of town by serious illness in his old home and would not be back until Saturday. Mr. Hardy felt a disappointment more keen than the occasion seemed to warrant. He was conscious that the time was very brief. He had fully made up his mind that so far as in him lay he would redeem his selfish past and make a week such as few men ever made.

He was just beginning to realize that circumstances are not always in our control. We are all obliged to wait for time to do some things. We cannot redeem seven years of selfishness with seven days of self-denial. The death of Scoville revealed to Mr. Hardy his powerlessness in the face of certain possibilities. He now feared that the superintendent would fail to return in time to let him confess to him his just sorrow for his lack of service in the school. He sat down to his desk and under that impulse wrote a letter that expressed in part how he felt. Then he jotted down the following items to be referred to the proper authorities of the road.

Item 1. -- The dust in the blacksmith shop and in the brass-polishing rooms is largely unnecessary. The new Englefield revolving rolling fans and elevator ought to be introduced in both departments. The cost would be but an item to the road, and would prolong the life and add to the comfort of the employees. Very important.

Item 2 -- Organized and intelligent effort should be made by all railroad corporations to lessen Sunday work in shops and on the road. All imperishable freight should be so handled as to call for the services of as few men on Sunday as possible, and excursion and passenger trains should be discontinued except in cases of unavoidable necessity.

Item 3 -- The inspection of boilers, retorts, castings, machinery of all kinds, should be made by thoroughly competent and responsible men who shall answer for all unnecessary accidents by swift and severe punishment in case of loss of life and limb.

Item 4 -- In case of injury or death to employees , if incurred through the neglect of the company to provide safety, it should provide financial relief for the families thus injured or stricken by death, and so far as possible arrange for their future.

Item 5. -- Any well-organized railroad could with profit to its employees have upon its staff of salaried men a corps of chaplains or preachers, whose business it would be to look after the religious interests of the employees. (Under this item Mr. Hardy wrote in footnote: Discuss feasibility of this with Mr. B --, influential director.)

It was now three o’clock. The short winter day was fast drawing to a close. The hum of the great engine in the machine shop was growing very wearisome to the manager. He felt sick of its throbbing tremor and longed to escape from it. Ordinarily he would have gone to the club room and had a game of chess with a member, or else he would have gone down and idled away an hour or two before supper at the Art Museum, where he was a constant visitor. That was when he had plenty of time and the business of the office was not pressing. Young Wellman, however, had succeeded to the clerical details of the shops, and Mr. Hardy’s time was generally free after four. He had been oppressed with the thought of the other injured men. He must go and see them. He could not rest easy till he had personally visited them. He went out and easily ascertained where the men lived. Never before did the contrast between the dull, uninteresting row of shop tenements and his own elegant home rise up so sharply before him. In fact, he had never given it much thought before.

Now as he looked forward to the end of the week, and knew that at its close he would be no richer, no better able to enjoy luxuries than the dead man lying in No. 760, he wondered vaguely but passionately how he could make use of what he had heaped together to make the daily lives of some of these poor men happier. He found the man who had lost both eyes sitting up in bed and feeling, in a pathetic manner, of a few blocks of wood which one of the children in the room had brought to him. He was a big, powerful man like his brother, the large-boned Dane, and it seemed a very pitiful thing that he should be lying there like a baby when his muscles were as powerful as ever. The brother was in the room with the injured man and he said to him:

“Olaf, Mr. Hardy come to see you.”

“Hardy? Hardy?” queried the man in a peevish tone. “What do I know him to be?”

“The manager. The one who donates so really much moneys to you.”

“Ah?” with an indescribable accent. “He make me work on a Sunday. He lose me my two eyes. A bad man, Sword! I will no have anything to do with him.”

And the old descendant of a thousand kings turned his face to the wall, and would not even so much as make a motion towards his visitor. His brother offered a rude apology. Mr. Hardy replied in a low tone, “Say nothing about it. I deserve all your brother says. But for a good reason I wish he would say he forgives me. Olaf.”

Mr. Hardy came nearer the bed and spoke very earnestly and as if he had known the man intimately.

“I did you a great wrong to order the work on Sunday, and in not doing my duty concerning the inspection of the machinery. I have come to say so, and to ask your forgiveness. I may never see you again. Will you say to me, ‘Brother, I forgive you?”

There was a moment of absolute passivity on the part of the big fellow, then a very large and brawny hand was extended and the blind man said:

“Yes, I forgive. We learned that in the old Bible, at Svendorf.”

Mr. Hardy laid his hand in the other, and his lips moved in a prayer of humble thanksgiving. What! Robert Hardy! Is this that proud man who only the day before was so lifted up with selfishness that he could coldly criticize his own minister for saying that people ought to be more Christ-like! Are you standing here in this poor man’s house which two days ago you would not have deigned to enter, and beseeching him as your brother in the great family of God to forgive you for what you have done and left undone? Yes, you have looked in the Face of Eternity, you realize now what life really means and what souls are really worth.

He went out, after a few words with the family, and saw all the other injured men. By the time he had finished these visits it was dark, and he eagerly turned home, exhausted with the day’s experience, feeling as if he had lived in a new world and at the same time wondering at the rapidity with which the time had fled.

He sighed almost contentedly to himself as he thought of the evening with his family and how he would enjoy it after the disquiet of the day. His wife was there to greet him, and Alice and Clara and Bess clung about him as he took off his coat and came into the beautiful room where a cheerful fire was blazing. Will came downstairs as his father came in, and in the brief interval before supper was ready, Mr. Hardy related the scenes of the day. They were all shocked to hear of Scoville’s death, and Mrs. Hardy at once began to discuss some plans for relieving the family. Bess volunteered to give up half her room to one of the children, and Alice quietly outlined a plan which immediately appeared to her father as business-like and feasible. In the midst of this discussion, supper was announced and they all sat down.

“Where is George?” asked Mr. Hardy. Ordinarily he would have gone on with the meal without any reference to the boy, because he was so often absent from the table. To-night he felt an irresistible longing to have all his children with him.

“He said he was invited out to supper with the Bramleys,” said Clara.

Mr. Hardy received the announcement in silence. He felt the bitterness of such indifference on the part of his oldest son. “What!” he said to himself, “when he knows I have such a little while left, could he not be at home?” And then almost immediately flashed into him the self-reproach even stronger than his condemnation of his boy, “How much have I done for him these last ten years to win his love and protect him from evil?”

After supper Mr. Hardy sat down by his wife, and in the very act he blushed with shame at the thought that he could not recall when he had spent an evening thus. He looked into her face and asked gently,

“Mary, what do you want me to do? Shall I read as we used to in the old days?”

“No, let us talk together,” replied Mrs. Hardy, bravely driving back her tears. “I cannot realize what it all means. I have been praying all day. Do you still have the impression you had this morning?”

“Mary, I am if anything even more convinced that God has spoken to me. The impression has been deepening with me all day. When I looked into poor Scoville’s face, the terrible nature of my past selfish life almost overwhelmed me. Oh, why have I abused God’s goodness to me so awfully?”

There was silence a moment. Then Mr. Hardy grew more calm. He began to discuss what he would do the second day. He related more fully the interview with the men in the shop and his visits to the injured. He drew Clara to him and began to inquire into her troubles in such a tender, loving way, that Clara’s proud, passionate, willful nature broke down, and she sobbed out her story to him as she had to her mother the might before.

Mr. Hardy promised Clara that he would see James the next day. It was true that James Caxton had only a week before approached Mr. Hardy and told him in very manful fashion of his love for his daughter, but Mr. Hardy had treated it as a child’s affair and, in accordance with his usual policy in family matters had simply told Clara and Bess to discontinue their visits at the old neighbor’s. But now that he heard the story from the lips of his own daughter he saw the seriousness of it, and crowding back all his former pride and hatred for the elder Caxton he promised Clara to see James the next day. Clara clung to her father in loving surprise. She was bewildered, as were all the rest, by the strange event that had happened to her father, but she never had so felt his love before, and forgetting for awhile the significance of his wonderful dream, she felt happy in his presence and in his affection for her.

The evening had sped on with surprising rapidity while all these matters were being discussed, and as it drew near to midnight again, Robert Hardy felt almost happy in the atmosphere of that home and the thought that he could still for a little while create joy for those who loved him. Suddenly he spoke of his other son:

“I wish George would come in. Then our family circle would be complete. But it is bedtime for you, Bess, and all of us, for that matter.”

It was just then that steps were heard on the front porch and voices were heard as if talking in whispers. The bell rang. Mr. Hardy rose to go to the door. His wife clung to him terrified.

“Oh, don’t go, Robert! I am afraid for you.”

“Why, Mary, it cannot be anything to harm me. Don’t be alarmed.”

Nevertheless he was a little startled. The day had been a trying one for him. He went to the door, his wife and the children following him close behind. He threw it wide open, and there, supported by two of his companions, one of them the young man Mr. Hardy had seen in the hotel lobby at noon, was his son George, too drunk to stand alone, and he leered into the face of his father and mother with a drunken look that froze their souls with despair, as the blaze of the hall lamp fell upon him reeling there. And so the first of Robert Hardy’s Seven Days came to an end.