Chapter II 

An Unknown Path 

Kirk blinked. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The automobile was still there, and he was still in it. Ruth was still gazing at him with the triumphant look in her eyes. The chauffeur, silent emblem of a substantial bank-balance, still sat stiffly at the steering-wheel. 

"Rich?" Kirk repeated. 

"Rich," Ruth assured him. 

"I don't understand." 

Ruth's smile faded. 

"Poor father----" 

"Your father?" 

"He died just after you sailed. Just before Bill got ill." She gave a little sigh. "Kirk, how odd life is!" 

"But-----" 

"It was terrible. It was some kind of a stroke. He had been working too hard and taking no exercise. You know when he sent Steve away that time he didn't engage anybody else in his place. He went back to his old way of living, which the doctor had warned him against. He worked and worked, until one day, Bailey says, he fainted at the office. They brought him home, and he just went out like a burned-out candle. I--I went to him, but for a long time he wouldn't see me. 

"Oh, Kirk, the hours I spent in the library hoping that he would let me come to him! But he never did till right at the end. Then I went up, and he was dying. He couldn't speak. I don't know now how he felt toward me at the last. I kissed him. He was all shrunk to nothing. I had a horrible feeling that I had never been a real daughter to him. But--but--you know, he made it difficult, awfully difficult. And then he died; Bailey was on one side of the bed and I was on the other, and the nurse and the doctor were whispering outside the door. I could hear them through the transom." 
Who was on the other bedside?
Bailey was on one side of the bed 