Mrs. Red Pepper

BROKEN STEEL WIRES

"But I can't stay here," John Leaver protested, a few days afterward. He was still in bed, much against his will, but not, as he was forced to admit, against his judgment, when he allowed it consideration. "I can't impose on Mrs. Burns's and your kindness like this. I shall soon be fit for travel, and then—"

"Would you mind listening to me?" R.P. Burns, M.D., sat comfortably back in a large willow chair, by the bedside, and crossed one leg over the other in a fashion indicative of an intention to settle down to it and have it out. "Just let me state the case to you, and try to look at it from the outside. Of course that's a difficult thing to do, when it happens to be your own case, but you have a judicial mind, and you can do the trick, if anybody can."

Leaver was silent. He lay staring out of the open window beside which his bed had been drawn, his thin cheek showing gaunt hollows, his eyes heavy with unrest. All the scents and sounds of June were pouring in at the three windows of the room; a tangle of rose vines looked in at him from this nearest one. Just before Amy Mathewson had left him, a few minutes ago, for her afternoon rest, she had brought him one wonderful bloom, the queen, it seemed, of all the roses of that June. It lay upon the window-sill, now, within reach of his hand.

Burns began to speak. His tone was matter-of-fact, yet it held inflections of tenderness. His friend's case appealed to him powerfully; his sympathy with Leaver's state of mind, as he was confident he understood it, was intense. "If it were I!" he had said to himself—and to Ellen—and had groaned in spirit at the thought. If it had been his own case, it seemed to him he could not have endured it.

"You were at that sanitorium," Burns began. "Sanitoriums are useful institutions, some of them get splendid results. But they have their disadvantages. It's pretty difficult to eliminate the atmosphere of illness. And, for a man whose training and instincts lead him to see behind every face he meets in such a place, it's not an ideal spot at all. What you need is a home, and that's what we're offering you, for as long as you need it."

"And I appreciate it more than any words can express," Leaver said gratefully. He turned his head now, and looked at his host. "Just to know that I have such friends does me good. And I know that you mean all you say. If I were a subject for a cure I might almost be tempted to take you at your word."

"You are a subject for a cure."

Leaver shook his head, turning it away again. "Only to a certain point," he said, quietly. "Of course I know that rest and quiet will put my heart right, because there's no organic lesion. Probably I shall build up and get the better of my depression of mind—to a certain extent. But, there's one thing I'm facing I haven't owned to you. You may as well know it. I shall never be able to operate again.... Perhaps you can guess what that means to me," he added. His voice was even, but his breathing was slightly quickened.

Burns was silent for a time, his own heart heavy with sympathy for Leaver. Guess what a conviction like that must mean to a man of Leaver's early eminence in the world of distinguished operative surgery? He surely could. It had been his almost certain knowledge that this was his friend's real trouble which had made him say to himself with a groan, "If it were I!" So he did not answer hastily to persist in assurance that all would yet be well. He knew Leaver understood that sort of professional hypnosis too thoroughly to be affected by it.

Burns got up and took a turn or two up and down the room, thinking things out. His face was graver than patients usually saw it; there was in it, however, a look of determination which grew, moment by moment, as he walked. Presently he came back to the bedside and sat down again.

"Suppose you tell me all about it, Jack," said he. "You haven't done me that honour, yet, you know. Will it be too hard on you? Just to make a clean breast of every thought and every experience which has led you to this point? I know I'm rather forcing myself upon you as your physician. If you prefer, I'll withdraw from the case, in favour of any better man you may choose, and send for him to-day."

Leaver's head turned back again. "I know no better man," he said, and their eyes met.

"There are plenty of better men," Burns went on, "but I confess I want this case, and am ready to take advantage of having it in my house, for the present, at least. Well, then,—if you can trust me, why not do as I suggest?"

Leaver shivered a little, in the warm June light, and put one hand for a moment over his eyes.

"You don't know what you ask, Red," he said, slowly.

"Don't I? Perhaps not. Yet—I have a notion that I do. It would be a trifle easier to face the rack and thumbscrew, eh? Well, let's get it over. Possibly telling will ease you a bit, after all. It works that way sometimes."

By and by, persisting, gently questioning, helping by his quick understanding of a situation almost before Leaver had unwillingly pictured it, he had the whole story. It was almost precisely the story he had guessed,—an old story, repeated by many such sufferers from overwork and heavy responsibility, but new to each in its entirety of torture, even to this man, who, still in his youthful prime, had himself heard many such a tale from the unhappy lips of his patients, yet to whom his own case seemed unique in its suffering and hopelessness.

The recital culminated in an incident so painful to the subject of it that he could recount it only in the barest outlines. His listener, however, by the power of his experience and his sympathy, could fill in every detail. A day had come, some six weeks before, when Leaver, though thoroughly worn out by severe and long continued strain, had attempted to operate. The case was an important one, the issue doubtful. Friends of the patient had insisted that no one else should take the eminent young surgeon's place, and, although he had had more than one inner warning, in recent operations, that his nerve was not what it had been, his pride had bid him see the thing through. He had given himself an energizing hypodermic,—he had never done that before,—and had gone into it. There had come a terrible moment.... Leaver's lips grew white as he tried to tell it.

He felt his friend's warm, firm hand upon his own as he faltered. "Steady, old fellow," said Burns's quiet voice. "We've got this nearly over. You'll be better afterward."

After a little Leaver went on.

He had come upon an unexpected complication—one undreamed of by himself or the consulting surgeons. "You know—" said Leaver. Burns nodded, emphatically. "You bet I know," said he, and his hand came again upon Leaver's, and stayed there. Leaver went on again, slowly.

Instant decision had been necessary, instant action. It was such a moment as he had faced hundreds of times before, and his quick wit, his surgeon's power of resource, his iron nerve, had always come to the support of his skill, and together these attributes had won the day for him. Fear, at such crises, had never possessed him, however much, afterward, reviewing the experience, he had wondered that it had not. But this time, fear—fear—a throttling, life-destroying fear had sprung upon him and gripped him by the throat. Standing there, entirely himself, except for that horrible consciousness that he could not proceed, he had had to beckon to the most experienced of the surgeons present who surrounded him as onlookers, and say to him: "Get ready—and take this case. I can't go on."

There had been no apparent physical collapse on his part, no fainting nor attack of vertigo, nothing to help him out in the eyes of that wondering, startled company of observers. He had been able to direct his assistants how to hold the operation in suspension until the astonished, unwilling colleague could make ready to step into the breach, cursing under his breath that such an undesired honour should have been thrust upon him. Then Leaver had walked out of the room, quite without assistance, only replying wanly to those who questioned, "There's nothing to say. I couldn't go on with it. Yes, I am perfectly well."

It had not got into the papers. They had been kind enough to see to that, those pitying professional colleagues who had witnessed his dispossession. The patient had lived. If he had died the thing must have come out. But he had lived. The situation could not have been as desperate a one as it had seemed. The other man had handled it,—and he was by no means a man eminent in his profession. There had been no excuse, then, for such a seizure,—no excuse. It meant—the end.

Well, it was certainly the end of recounting it, for when he had reached this point Leaver's power to endure the thought of it all failed him, and he lay back upon his pillows, his brow damp and his breath short.

Burns silently ministered to him, pain in his eyes, his lips drawn tight together. His sympathy for his friend was intense.

It seemed to him incredible that this shaken spirit before him could be John Leaver—Leaver, whom, as he had told his wife, he had often envied his perfect self-command, his supposed steadiness of pulse, his whole strong, cool personality, unaffected by issues such as always keyed Burns himself up to a tremendous tension, making him pale with the strain. "Leaver's made of steel wires," had been his description of his friend to Ellen. Well, the steel wires were stretched and broken, now, no doubt of that. The question was whether they could ever be mended and restrung.

When Leaver was comfortable again,—comfortable as far as an evenly beating heart and a return of blood to the parts which needed it could make him,—Burns spoke to him once more.

"We won't talk about this any more to-day, Jack," he said. "You've had enough for now, and I have what I needed,—the facts to work upon. Just let me say this much. I'm not discouraged by anything I've heard to-day. I'll not try any bluffs or jollyings with you, because I know they wouldn't work, but I do say this, honestly: I'm not discouraged. And I'm interested—interested to the bottom of my heart. I'm going to put the best there is in me into this problem. I never tackled anything in my life that appealed to me more powerfully. If that's any comfort just now, I offer it. If you were my brother I couldn't be more anxious to pull you out of this ditch. Now, trust me, and try to go to sleep."

Leaver did not look up at the kind, almost boyishly tender face above him, but he pressed the hand which grasped his own, and Burns saw a tear creep out from under the closed lids of the eyes under which the black shadows lay so deeply. The well man took himself away from the sick one as quickly as he could after that,—he couldn't bear the sight of that tear! It was more eloquent of Leaver's weakness than all his difficult words.

When he met Miss Mathewson, an hour afterward, in the hall, on her way back to her patient, he delayed her.

"I want you to do more than nurse this case, Amy," he said, fixing her with a certain steady look of his with which he always gave commands. "I want you to put all your powers, as a woman, into it. Forget that you are nursing Dr. Leaver, try to think of him as a friend. You can make one of him, if you try, for you have in you qualities which will appeal to him—if you will let him see them. You have hardly let even me see them,"—he smiled as he said it,—"but my eyes have been opened at last. I'm inclined to believe that you can do more for our patient than even my wife or I,—if you will. Suppose,"—he spoke with a touch of the dangerously persuasive manner he could assume when he willed, and which most people found it hard to resist,—"you just let yourself go, and try—deliberately try—to make Dr. Leaver like you!"

She coloured furiously under the suggestion. "Dr. Burns! Do you realize what you're saying?"

"Quite thoroughly. I'm asking you not to hesitate to make of yourself a woman of interest and charm for him, for the sake of taking him out of himself. Isn't that a perfectly legitimate part for a nurse to play when that happens to be the medicine needed? You have those powers,—how better could you use them? Suppose you are able, through your effect of sweetness and light, to minister to a mind diseased;—isn't that quite as worthy an occupation as counting out drops of aconite, or applying mustard plasters?"

Amy Mathewson shook her head. "Do you realize, Dr. Burns, that a man like—your guest—is so far beyond me in mind and—tastes—in every way, that I could never—interest him in the way you speak of—even if I were willing to try?"

She spoke with difficulty. As Burns studied her downbent face, the profile his wife had brought out by her skill at hair-dressing showing like a fine cameo against the dark background of the wall, he was thinking that unless Leaver were blind he must find her rather satisfying to the eye, at least. He answered her with confidence.

"He's a man of education, it's true. But what are you? Come,—haven't I found all sorts of evidences, about my office, that you are a woman of education? It doesn't matter whether you got that education in a college or from the books I know you have read,—you have it. I'll trust your ability to discuss six out of a dozen subjects Leaver may bring up—or, if you can't discuss them all, you can do what is better—let him instruct you. Don't tell me you can't handle those cards every fascinating woman understands so well. If there's anything a man likes to do it's to teach an interested woman the things she cleverly professes she wants to know—and the best of it is that no matter how often you play that game on us we're always caught by it. Leaver will be caught by it, just as if he hadn't had it tried on him a thousand times. And while he's playing it with you, he'll forget himself, which is the first step on the road I want him to travel."

She looked up. "Do you mean that I am to keep on attending him after he is able to leave his room? Is he going to stay with you after that? He told me only to-day that he intends to go as soon as he is able to travel."

"We shall keep him as long as we can possibly persuade him to stay. Meanwhile, my plan is to have you settle down and stay with us, as a member of the family. We'll have someone else attend to the office. You can go with me, as usual, when I operate, but I shall put you on no case but Dr. Leaver's, and the greater part of your time will be his."

"But what will he think? Doesn't he know that I'm your office nurse?"

"How should he know it—unless you have taken pains to tell him?"

She shook her head. "He only knows that I am your assistant at operations. The other point hasn't come up."

"Good. Then he will accept whatever situation he finds, and never think of questioning it. The way is clear enough. And it's the only way I know of to insure his having what he needs—the close companionship of a sympathetic—yet not too sympathetic—woman—with a face like yours," he added, slyly.

The quick colour answered this, as he knew it would. "Dr. Burns! You know I'm not even good looking! Please don't say such things."

"I only said 'a face like yours.' That may imply a face as plain as you think Amy Mathewson's is—and as my wife and I know it is not. It's time you waked up, girl, to your own attractions. You ought to have faith in them when I'm asking the use of them for this patient of mine. I'd give about all I own to put him on his feet again."

"I hope you can—indeed I do. And of course—anything I can do—"

He nodded. "I'll leave that to you. Consult—not your head alone, but—your heart!"

And he let her go, smiling at her evident confusion of mind. But when left alone he sighed again.

"He needs a woman like my Ellen,—that would be a drug of a higher potency. But—he can't have that—he can't have that! I must do the next best thing."

And he went on his way, studying it out.

That evening he took his wife into his confidence. He did not tell her the whole story,—it was not his to tell. But he made her acquainted with the fact that Leaver had had a severe nervous shock and that the thing to be overcome was his own distrust of himself, the thing to be recovered was his entire self-command.

"I have insisted on his staying as long as he can be content," Burns explained. "I had your consent to that, I know?"

"Of course, Red. You knew that."

"In my enthusiasm I went a step further, without realizing that I had not consulted you. I asked Amy Mathewson to stay with us too, as a member of the family. I asked her cooperation as a woman, as well as a nurse, and to have that it seemed to me necessary to have her here, even after he is up and able to look after his own wants. How will you feel about that?"

He looked straight into her eyes. They were sitting upon a small side porch, in the late June evening. He had come in from a visit to a nearby patient, and, finding her upon the porch, had thrown himself upon the cushion at her feet, his head against her knee. Now, he turned and looked up at her, and she could see his expression clearly in the moonlight.

"I don't believe I quite understand yet," she said. "What is it that you want Amy to do for him, 'as a woman'? Read to him, and walk with him, and be a sort of comrade?"

"Precisely that—and a bit more."

"Can you prescribe that sort of thing, and make sure that it will work out? He may not care for it."

"I want him to have a woman's companionship; it's what he needs, I firmly believe. It must be a certain sort of woman—the kind who will be good for his nerves, gently stimulating, not exacting. One of the brilliant society women he knows wouldn't do at all. The ideal kind would be—your own kind. But he can't have that." He spoke so decidedly that she smiled, though he did not see it. "It seems to me that Amy, if she puts her heart into it, can give him just what he needs. Remember he's a sick man, and will continue to be a sick man for some time after he's walking about our streets and climbing our hills."

"Yes, I'm afraid he will be. And you think he will accept Amy's companionship, after he is walking about, as a part of his medicine? Shall you insist on her being with him, or is she to wait to be invited to read to him and walk with him?"

His brows knit in a frown. "You think I'm prescribing something I can't administer? But I think that he will grow so used to having her with him, while he actually needs her as a nurse, that, when he gets about and finds her still here, he will quite naturally fall into the way of seeking her company."

"Perhaps he will. At any rate, she is very welcome to stay, as long as you want her for the experiment."

"You are an angel! I realize that I shouldn't have made such an arrangement without asking your permission. To tell the truth, I'm so used to—"

He stopped short, with a little ejaculation of dismay.

"I understand, dear," she said quickly. "You are so used to being master of the house that you forgot the new conditions. It's all right—you are still master—particularly in everything that has to do with your profession. And if you can find a cure for poor Dr. Leaver's broken spirit I shall be as happy as you."

"It's going to make you a lot of trouble,—two guests in the house, for an indefinite period. You see, I'm just waking up to what I'm asking of you. It's precisely like my impetuosity to create a situation I can't retreat from, and then wonder at my own nerve. Will it bother you very much?"

"It's what we're here for, isn't it?" She smiled at him as he turned and put both arms around her, kneeling beside her in the shadow of the vines. "It's certainly what you are here for, and I am your partner, or I'm not much of a wife."

"Bless you, you darling; you surely are. And such a partner! If Leaver had one like you—he wouldn't be where he is. But he can't have you," he repeated, and held her closer. "I couldn't see you reading to him and walking with him, and being a friend to him,—I couldn't see it, that's all, no matter how much good you might do him. Queer—I didn't know that was in me—that feeling. Macauley calls me a Turk. I guess that's what I am. It's a primitive sort of instinct, scoffed at in these days when half the married women are playing with fire in the shape of other women's husbands. But I hate that sort of thing—have always hated it. I'm a Turk, all right. Do you mind?"

"No, I don't think I mind," she answered softly. "But I want your perfect trust, Red."

"You have it, oh, you have it, love. No possible question of that. And I don't mean that I'm not willing to have Leaver get what he can of your dearness, as he's bound to feel it, in our home. But this comrade business, which I feel he's so much in need of,—that's what he can't have from you. And if he stayed on, and there was no other woman about, why, quite naturally—"

He stopped. Then, as she was silent, "You won't misunderstand me, little wife?" he begged. "I've seen so much of the other thing, you know. Can I be—enough for you?"

"Quite enough, Red."

After a minute he went back to the thing which absorbed him. "I can see you haven't much confidence in my plan for Amy's helping him?"

She hesitated. "You spoke just now of playing with fire. You don't feel that in throwing two people so closely together you are risking something?"

He considered it. "My idea is that Amy will administer her comradeship as she would her medicines. She is the most conscientious girl alive; she won't give him a drop too much."

"Not a drop too much for his good, perhaps. But what about hers, dear? When he is himself Dr. Leaver can be a wonderfully interesting and compelling man, you know. It would be a pity for her to grow to care for him, if—I don't suppose it is at all possible to expect him to care seriously for her,—do you?"

"Well, I shouldn't have said so a month ago. But I'm just beginning to realize a new side to Amy Mathewson. I don't suppose I ever saw her—to look at her—out of her uniform, before that night when you dressed her up. By George, along with the clothes she seemed to put on a new skin!"

"Uniforms are disguising things," Ellen admitted, "and Amy is a lady, born and bred, in her uniform and out of it. But it's not much use speculating on what will happen, when the arrangements are already made. We must just do our best for Dr. Leaver, and hope that no harm will come to either of them."

"None will—under your roof," her husband asserted confidently.

POINTS OF VIEW

"A lady downstairs to see you, Mrs. Burns." Cynthia presented a card.

It was early morning. Ellen had just seen her husband off in the Green Imp, and was busy at various housewifely tasks. She took the card in some surprise, for morning calls were not much in vogue in this small town. But when she read the name—"Miss Ruston"—she gave a little cry of delight, and ran downstairs as one goes to welcome a long absent friend.

A graceful figure, radiant with health and good looks, dressed in the trimmest and simplest of travelling attire, yet with a gay and saucy air about her somewhere, quite difficult to locate, rose as Ellen came in. Dark eyes flashed, lips smiled happily, and a pair of arms opened wide. Ellen found herself caught and held in a warm embrace, which she returned with a corresponding ardour.

"Why, Charlotte, dear!" she cried. "Where did you come from? And why didn't you let me know?"

"Straight from home, Len, darling. And I didn't let you know because I didn't know myself till I was here. Oh, do let me look at you! How dear, how dear you are! I had almost forgotten anybody could be so lovely."

"That sounds like you, you enthusiastic person. How glad I am to see you—it seems so long. I hope you have come to make me a visit, now you are here."

"Just a wee one, for a day, while I make plans at express speed, and fly back again to grandmother. I left her in Baltimore."

"Really? Did you bring her 'way up from Charleston? Then she must be pretty well?"

"Very well, if, like a piece of old china, I keep her quiet on the top shelf. Baltimore is the bottom shelf, for her, even though she's with the Priedieus, who will take the kindest care of her. Hence my haste. Oh, I can't wait a minute till I tell you my plans. Let me splash my dusty face and I'll plunge in. I want your advice, your interest, and your—cooperation!"

"You shall have them all, my dearest girl. Come upstairs," and Ellen led the way, Miss Ruston following with a small travelling bag of which she would not give her hostess possession.

"What a dear house!" The guest was throwing rapid glances all about her as she mounted the stairs. "I should have known that living-room was yours if I hadn't had your Aunt Lucy's famous old desk to give me a clue. O, Len, the very back of you is enchanting!"

Ellen turned to laugh at Charlotte Ruston's characteristic fervour of expression. "I remember you are always admiring people's backs," she observed.

"Yes, they're often so much more interesting than their faces. But yours—merely gives promise of what the face fulfills! Forgive me, Len,—you know when I haven't seen you for ages I have to tell you what I think of you. In here? Oh, what an adorable room!"

It was Ellen's own. She was thinking rapidly. Dr. John Leaver occupied one of her two guest-rooms, Amy Mathewson the other. She should have to turn Bob out of the bachelor's room, and send him down to stay with Cynthia. But Miss Ruston put an end to her planning at once by adding:

"I can't even sleep under your roof, Len, for I've engaged my berth on the sleeper to-night. I'm always in such anxiety about Granny when I get her away from her quiet corner. Now let me make myself clean with all haste, that I may not lose a minute of this happy day with you."

She was as good as her word, and in five minutes was looking as fresh as the fortunate possessor of much rich and youthful bloom can be at a touch of soap and water. She gave her hostess a second embrace, laying a cheek like a June rose against Ellen's more delicately tinted cheek, and murmuring:

"I never can tell you how I have missed you since that all-conquering husband of yours brought you off up North. By the way, is that his photograph?"

She was looking over Ellen's shoulder at a picture in an ivory-and-silver frame upon the dressing-table. She answered her own question.

"Of course it is. I'd know by the look of him that he must be Red Pepper Burns." She went over and examined the pictured face closely. "I could make a better picture of him than that,—I know it without seeing him in the flesh. What a splendid pair of eyes! Do they look right down into your inmost thoughts—or do they see only as far as your liver? Fine head, good mouth, straight nose, chin like a stone wall! Goodness! do you never meet up with that chin?"

She looked around at Ellen with mischief in her bright brown eyes.

"Of course I do! Would you have a man chinless?"

"Luckily, you have a determined little round chin of your own," Miss Ruston observed. "And you're happy with him? Yes, I can see it in your face. Well, now, shall we talk about me? Because I have so little time, you know, and so much has to be settled before night."

"Tell me all about it at once, dear." And Ellen established her guest in a high-backed, cushioned wicker chair by the window, and sat down close by. The two looked at each other, smiling.

"Well, Len, I never could lead up to a thing; I have to tell it in one burst, and trust to Providence to sustain the hearer. What would you say—to—my coming to this place for a year, renting a cottage, putting in a skylight, and—practising my profession of photography in your midst?"

"Charlotte Ruston!"

"My middle name is Chase," observed Miss Ruston, laying her head back against the chair, and smiling out at Mrs. Burns through half-closed lids. "Charlotte Chase Ruston forms a quite imposing signature to imprint upon the distinguished portraits she is to make. Portraits of the aristocracy who can afford to pay ever so many dollars a dozen for likenesses of themselves in exquisite, informal poses, with wonderful shadows just where they will hide the most defects, and splendid high lights where they will bring out all the charm the subjects didn't know they possessed."

"Charlotte! Have you been studying in secret? I know you do delightful amateur work, but—a studio! Do you dare?"

"I've worked a year in the developing room of the Misses Kendall, and have been allowed to make trial studies of subjects, when they were busy. I have their friendship, also that of Brant—Eugene Brant—who does the cleverest professionally amateur studio work in the world, according to my humble opinion. And the Kendalls do the finest garden and outdoor studies, as you know. Could I have better training? Mr. Brant thinks me fit to start a city studio—a modest one—but the Misses Kendall advise a year in a small town, just working for experience and perfection. Then when I do begin in a bigger place I'll be ready to do work of real distinction. Come, tell me, isn't it a beautiful plan?"

"Any plan, which brings you to live near me, is a beautiful plan. And you've really chosen this little town? How did you come to do it?"

"Tales of the beauty of the region, and the reflection that, since one small town in it was probably as good as another, there was no reason why I shouldn't be near one of my dearest friends, and have, frankly, the help of her patronage. Shall you mind giving it to me?"

"I'll bring you a dozen subjects the first day. I suppose you haven't looked about at all as yet for the place?"

"I shall not need to, if you won't object to having me close by, even so near as across the road. As I stood on your doorstep I saw my future studio spring, full-fledged, into view, with a 'To rent' notice already up. Could I have a plainer sign that my good fairy is attending my footsteps?"

Miss Ruston leaned forward to the window as she spoke, drew aside the thin curtain which swayed there in the summer breeze, and pointed across the street. "Isn't there a little old cottage, back in there somewhere, in a tangle of old-fashioned flowers? It doesn't show from here, I see, but from below I caught just a glimpse of its unimposing dimensions. The sign is on the gate, in the hedge. It's simply perfect that the place should have a hedge!"

"Evidently you didn't inspect it very closely, Charlotte dear. It's a most forlorn little old place, and much run down. Two old ladies have lived there all their lives, and have died there within the year. They would never sell, although, as you see, the neighbourhood all about is built up with modern houses—all except our own. This house is quite old, I believe, too."

"Two old ladies lived and died there, did they?" mused Charlotte Ruston. "Their gentle ghosts won't trouble us, and Granny will delight in that garden. What a background for an outdoor studio! Do let's go over and explore the place, will you?"

As they crossed the street the newcomer was using her eyes with eager observation. "It's a fine old street," she said, "with all these beautiful trees. What a pity it is mostly so modern in the matter of architecture! I wonder if the people in those houses will think me out of my head, to begin with, because I choose this quaint little dwelling-place. I shall choose it, Len, if I can get it, I warn you."

With some difficulty they opened the gate in the hedge, and proceeded up the path of moss-grown stones to the house, set so far back from the street that it was nearly concealed by the growth of untrimmed shrubbery, old rose-bushes heavy with pink and white roses, lilac trees, and barberry-bushes.

"Of all the dear, queer, little front porches!" Miss Ruston cried, setting her exploring foot on a porch floor which promptly sagged beneath her weight. She threw a quizzical glance at her companion. "Even though the roof falls in on my head, and the walls sway as I pass by, I must have this house—if it is dry! Of course I can't bring Granny to a damp house. Putting in my skylight and shingling the rest of the roof will take care of dampness from above, but I must look after the floors and foundations. Who owns it, and how can we get in?"

An hour later the key had been obtained from the astonished owner, an inhabitant of one of the modern houses near by and a nephew of the former occupants, and the place had been thoroughly gone over. It was examined by a future tenant who made light of all the real drawbacks to the place—as the owner secretly considered them—but who demanded absolutely water-tight conditions as the price of her rent. As she was willing to pay what seemed to the landlord an extraordinary rent—though he carefully concealed his feelings on this point—he somewhat grudgingly agreed to put in the skylight and shingle the roof.

"But when it comes to paint and paper and plumbing, the house isn't worth it, and I can't agree to do it," he declared positively. "Not for any one year rental."

"I don't want paint, paper, or plumbing," she replied, and he set her down as eccentric indeed. "But I do want that fireplace unsealed, and if you will put that and the chimney in order, so I can have fires there, I won't ask for any modern conveniences. When can you have it ready for me? By the middle of July?"

He did not think this possible, but his new tenant convinced him that it was, and went away smiling, her hands full of June roses, and her spirits high. It was with her vivid personality at its best that she presently took her place at the luncheon table, meeting there, however, at first, only Miss Mathewson.

"My patient has fallen asleep after his walk," Amy explained to Mrs. Burns, as she came in. "I thought he had better not be wakened."

"You were quite right, I am sure," Ellen agreed. Then she made the two young women known to each other, and the three sat down. R.P. Burns, M.D., rushing in the midst of the meal, found them laughing merrily together over a tale the guest had been telling.

As Burns came forward Miss Ruston rose to meet him. The two regarded each other with undisguised interest as they shook hands.

"Yes, I can make a much better photograph of you than the one on your wife's dressing-table," said she, judicially, and laughed at his astonished expression.

"Can you, indeed?" he inquired. "Have you a snapshot camera concealed anywhere about you? If so, I'll consider going back to town for my luncheon."

"You are safe for to-day," Ellen assured him, and he sat down.

He was told the tale of the morning, the subject introduced by his wife, and amplified by their guest. He expressed his interest.

"You have a good courage, Miss Ruston," said he. "And we'll agree to stand by you. Any time, in the middle of the night, that we hear the crash and fall of decayed old timbers, we'll come to the rescue and pull you out. We don't have much excitement here. The wreck will have the advantage of advertising you thoroughly. Then you can build a tight little bungalow on the spot and settle down to real business."

Miss Ruston shook her shapely head. "No tight little bungalows for me," she averred. "Those vine-clad old walls will make wonderful backgrounds for my outdoor subjects—they and the garden. Then, indoors—the fireplace, the queer old doors—"

Red Pepper looked at his wife. "Has the village a passion for quaintness?" he asked her. "Will our leading citizens want to be photographed in their old hoopskirts, with roses behind their ears?"

"Oh, you don't understand!" cried Miss Ruston. "Ellen—will you excuse me while I run up and bring down an example or two of my work?"

She was back in a minute, several prints in her hand. She came around behind Burns's chair and laid one before him, another before Amy Mathewson. Ellen, who had already seen the prints, watched her husband's face as he examined the photograph.

"You don't intend me to understand," said he, after a minute's steady scrutiny, "that this is a photograph of actual children?"

Miss Ruston nodded. Her face glowed with enthusiasm over her work. "Indeed it is. Flesh and blood children—Rupert and Rodney Trumbull. And it's really the night before Christmas, too. They were not acting the part—it was the real thing."

Burns continued to study the picture—of two small boys in their night-clothes, standing before a chimney-piece, looking up at their stockings, at that last wondering, enchanted moment before they should lay hands upon the mysteries before them. The glow of the firelight was upon them, the shadows behind held the small sturdy figures in an exquisitely soft embrace. It was such a photograph as combines the workings of the most delicate art with the unconscious posing of absolute realism.

Burns looked from the picture to his wife's face. "We must have one of Bobby like that," said he.

Ellen agreed, her eyes meeting her friend's over his head. The guest laid another print before him. "Since you like fireplace effects," she explained. Then she gave the Christmas-eve picture to Miss Mathewson, smiling as Amy, returning the print she had been studying, said softly, "It is wonderful work, Miss Ruston. I shall want one of my mother like this."

"You shall have it," Miss Ruston promised.

Burns exclaimed with pleasure over the presentment of a little old lady, knitting before a fire, a faint smile on her face, as if she were thinking of lovely things as she worked. As in the other picture the shadows were soft and hazy, only the surfaces touched by the fireglow showing with distinctness, the whole effect almost illusive, yet giving more of the human touch than any clear and distinct details could possibly have done.

"That is Granny," said Miss Ruston, a gentle note in her eager voice. "My little piece of priceless porcelain which I guard with all the defences at my command. Tell me, Dr. Burns, I shall not be bringing her into any danger if I put her in the little old house, when it is made right?"

"If you are thinking of bringing this old lady here," said he, emphatically, his eyes on the picture again, "you must let me look the place over thoroughly for you first."

"But I've engaged it!" cried his wife's friend, in dismay.

"That doesn't matter. You will call it all off again, if I don't find the place can be made fit," said he. "Old ladies like this shall not be risked in doubtful places, no matter how quaint and artistic the background, not while I am on hand to prevent."

Miss Ruston looked at Mrs. Burns. "Is this what he is like?" said she, in dismay. "I didn't reckon with him!"

"You will have to reckon with me now," said Red Pepper Burns, with coolness.

"But the owner says it can be made perfectly tight. And I have to go back to-night!"

"The owner of a sieve would say it could be made perfectly tight—if it was wanted for a dishpan. And you are at liberty to go back to-night—much as we shall dislike to lose you. I will take time to go over, right now, and make sure of this thing for you."

He rose as he spoke.

"Well, of all the positive gentlemen! Will you stay to look at one more? It may soften that austere mood."

Miss Ruston gave him a third print. It was of a very beautiful woman standing beside a window, the attitude apparently unstudied, the lighting unusual and picturesque, the whole effect challenging all conventional laws of photography.

"It's very nice—very nice," said Burns, indifferently. "But it's not in it with the old lady by the fire. I'll run across and make sure of her quarters, if you please."

"That will be wonderfully good of you," and the guest looked after her host, dubiously, as he went out.

"Does one have to do everything he says, in these parts?" she inquired, glancing from Mrs. Burns to Miss Mathewson, both of whom were smiling. Her own expression was an odd mixture of interest and rebellion.

Miss Mathewson spoke first. "I have been his surgical assistant for more than nine years," said she. "When I have ventured to depart from the line he laid out for me I have—been very sorry, afterward."

"Did you ever venture to depart very far?"

"Do I look so meek?"

"You don't look meek at all, but you do look—conscientious." Miss Ruston gave her a daring look.

Amy spoke with more spirit than the others had expected. "If I were not conscientious I couldn't work for Dr. Burns."

"He doesn't look conscientious, to me," declared Miss Ruston. "He looks adventurous, audacious, unexpected."

"Perhaps he is. But he doesn't expect his assistant nurse to be adventurous, audacious, or unexpected!"

"Good for you!" Miss Ruston was laughing, and looking with newly roused interest at this young woman, whom she had perhaps taken to be of a more commonplace type than her words now indicated. "As for my friend, Mrs. Burns—he is her husband, and she must have known what he was like, since I, in one short hour, have already discovered two or three of his characteristics! Well, here's hoping he's on my side, when he comes back. If he's not—"

But when he came back he was on her side, reluctantly convinced by a painstaking examination of the possibilities in the old cottage, and by a man-to-man talk with its owner as to his good faith in promising to carry out the lessee's requirements.

"Though what in the name of time possesses a stunning girl like that to come here and shut herself up in Aunt Selina's old rookery, I can't make out," the landlord, Burns's neighbour, had confessed.

"Possibly she won't shut herself up," Burns had suggested, though he himself had been unable to discover the mysterious attraction of the little old house. The garden promised better, he thought. He could understand her being caught by the forsaken though powerful charm of that. Doubtless it would furnish backgrounds for her outdoor photography, which would put to blush any painted screens such as the village photographers were accustomed to use.

He returned to give Miss Ruston his sanction of her project, and to receive her half-mocking, wholly grateful acknowledgment.

"And I hope, Dr. Burns," said she, as he took leave of her, his watch in his left hand as he shook hands with his right, "that you will let me make that photograph of you, at the very beginning of my stay here."

"With a clump of hollyhocks behind me, or a 'queer old door'?" he inquired.

"With nothing behind you except darkness and mystery," said she.

"I thought those were the things one looked toward, not out of?"

"Your patients looking toward 'the black unknown,' and seeing your face, must find their future lighted with hope!"

He turned and looked at his wife, a sparkle in his eye. "She's from the big town," said he. "Here in the country we don't know how to give fine, fascinating blarney like that, eh? Good-bye, Miss Ruston, and good luck. Bring the little grandmother carefully wrapped in jeweller's cotton—nothing is too good for her!"

When luncheon was over Mrs. Burns and her guest went off for a long drive, Miss Ruston being anxious to explore the region of which she had heard as offering a field for her camera. The drive, taken in the Macauley car, by Martha's invitation, and in the company of Martha herself, Winifred Chester, and several children, prevented much confidential talk between the two friends, and it was not until a few minutes before train time, at five o'clock, that the two were for a brief space again alone together.

"I'm so sorry you are not to be here at dinner," Ellen said, as Miss Ruston repacked her small travelling bag, while the car waited outside to take her to the station. "I should have liked you to meet our guest, Dr. Leaver. He is an old friend of my husband's, who has been ill and is here convalescing. He over-tired himself in taking a walk this morning, and has been resting in his room all the afternoon."

Charlotte Ruston, adjusting a smart little veil before Ellen's mirror, her back to her friend, asked, after a moment's pause:

"Dr. Leaver? Not Dr. John Leaver, of Baltimore?"

"Yes, indeed. Do you know him?"

"I have met him. Is he ill? I hadn't heard of that."

"He has worked very hard, and is worn out," explained Ellen, choosing her terms carefully. Her husband had warned her against allowing any definite news concerning Leaver to get back to his home city. "He is improving, and we are keeping him here because it is a place where he can be out of the world, for a time, and not be called upon to go back before he should. So please don't mention to your Baltimore friends that he is here. I am ever so sorry, if you know him, that he wasn't down to-day. It might have done him good to see the face of an acquaintance."

"It might be too stimulating for him," suggested Miss Ruston. She seemed difficult to satisfy in the matter of the veil's adjustment. Though she had had it fastened, she now took it off and began again to arrange it.

"Can't I help you?" Ellen offered, coming close.

"Thank you, I can manage it. I had it too tight. I suppose your guest will be gone before I come back?"

"I don't know. He needs a long rest, and we shall keep him just as long as he can be contented. Not that he is contented to be idle, but it is what he needs. He is going to need diversion, too, and perhaps you can help supply it, when you come back. Do you know him well enough to know what an interesting man he is?"

"I have heard people talk about him who do," said Miss Ruston. "But I hope he will be quite recovered and away before I come back—for his own sake. There, I believe this veil's on, at last. What a terrible colour it gives one to drive in the sun all afternoon! I must put on plenty of cold cream to-night, or I shall be a fright to-morrow."

"Why, you are burned! I hadn't noticed it before. And the top was up, all the time, too. But it's very becoming, Charlotte, since it seems to have confined itself to your cheeks. One's nose is usually the worst sufferer."

"That will probably show later. I must be off. Thank you, dear—dearest—for all you have done for me to-day. It's been such a happy day, I can't tell you how I feel about it."

Charlotte Chase Ruston laid her burning, rose-hued cheek against her friend's—cool and quite unburned by the drive—embraced her, and hurried down the stairs. She seemed in haste to be off, but it was like her to be eager to do whatever was to be done. Ellen looked after her as the Macauley car bore her away.

"Dear Charlotte!" she said to herself. "It's like having a warm, invigorating wind sweep over one to have her company, even for a day. How I shall enjoy her, when she comes! Of all the young women I know she seems to me the most alive. I wish Dr. Leaver had been down to-day. He would surely have liked to see her; I never knew a man who didn't. If he has ever met her, he must remember her. But perhaps he will want to run away, if he knows any one who knows him has found him out. Perhaps it will be better not to tell him—just yet."

UNDER THE APPLE TREE

"A walk, Miss Mathewson? Yes, I'll take a walk—or a pill—or whatever is due. Did you ever have a more obedient patient?"

John Leaver rose slowly from the steamer-chair in a corner of the porch where he had been lying, staring idly at the vines which sheltered him from the village street, or out at the strip of lawn upon which the early evening light was falling. His tall figure straightened itself; evidently it cost him an effort to force his shoulders into their naturally erect carriage. But as he walked down the path by Miss Mathewson's side there was not much look of the invalid about him. His face, though still rather thin, showed a healthy colour, the result of constant exposure to the sun and air. His days were spent wholly out of doors.

"Which way, this time?" Amy asked, as they reached the street.

"Away from things rather than toward them, please. I shall be very glad when I can tramp off into the open country."

Amy glanced across the street. "Don't you want to approach a visit to the country by exploring the old garden, over there? I hear that it has all sorts of treasures of old-fashioned flowers in it. Do you care for old gardens?"

"Very much, though it is a long time since I've been in one."

"Have you heard that the old house over here is to have a new tenant?"

"No, I haven't heard."

Leaver opened the gate in the hedge for his companion, looking as if the least interesting thing in the world to him were the matter of tenants for the little old cottage before him. But his tone was, as always, courteously interested.

"I was so sorry, the other day, that it happened you didn't meet Mrs. Burns's friend, such an interesting young woman. She is coming here to open a photographic studio in this old house—as an experiment."

"A professional photographer?"

"I believe not—as yet. She would still call herself an amateur, but from the pictures she showed us she would seem an expert. I never saw anything like them. Dr. Burns—he had never met her—was very much taken with them, especially with one of the little old lady, her grandmother, whom she is to bring here."

They strolled along the moss-grown path, past the house, aside into the garden, its tangle of flowers and shrubbery rich with neglected bloom and sweet with all manner of scents—sweet-william, larkspur, clove-pink. Leaver, stooping, picked a spicy-smelling, fringe-bordered pink, and sniffed its sun-warmed fragrance.

"It takes me back to my boyhood," he said, "when I used to think a visit at my grandfather's old country place the greatest thing that could happen to me. There was a big bed of these flowers under my window. When the sun was hot upon them they rivalled the spices of Araby."

Miss Mathewson stood looking back at the house. From the garden, which lay at the side and behind it, it showed all of its forlornness and few of its possibilities.

"What will she make of living there, even for the year she means to stay?" she wondered, aloud. "Now, if it were I, it wouldn't seem strange; I am used to living in a little old house. But such a girl as Miss Ruston—I can hardly imagine her here. She thinks the house and the old garden will make fine backgrounds for her work. I suppose they will."

"Miss Ruston?" Dr. Leaver repeated. "Was that the name?"

"Miss Charlotte Ruston, of South Carolina, I believe. I never heard the name before, have you?"

"It is an unusual one. I have known only one person of that name." Leaver walked slowly over to a decayed and tumbling bench beneath an apple-tree, whose boughs had been so long untrimmed that they spread almost to the earth. He sat down upon it, rather heavily, and lifted the clove-pink to his nostrils again. His dark brows contracted slightly. He looked at the house. "It will have to have a good deal done to it before it is fit for any one," he observed. "You said there was an old lady to come, too?"

"A most beautiful little old lady, whom Miss Ruston seemed to be very anxious over, lest she suffer any harm. Dr. Burns, when he heard of it, insisted on coming over here to make sure the house could be made perfectly dry and comfortable for her."

"He was right. Little old ladies must be taken care of, and young women are apt to think any place that is picturesque is safe."

Miss Mathewson, seeing him apparently more interested in the subject than he was apt to be in the topics she brought up to amuse him, except as he assumed interest for her sake, went on with this one, and told him all she knew about Miss Ruston's plans, ending with a description of the photographs she had shown.

"But I should like to see one of herself," she added. "She has such a—brilliant face. I can't think of any other word to describe it! When she looks at you she looks as if she—cared so much to see what you were like!" She laughed at her own attempt to make her description clear. "Not as if she were curious, you know, but as if she were interested—attracted. Can you imagine the expression?"

Leaver leaned his head back against the apple-tree trunk, and closed his eyes. The spice-pink, still held at his nostrils, shielded his lips. He looked rather white, his nurse noticed, but she had become accustomed to seeing these moments come upon him—they passed away again, and Dr. Burns had said that no notice need be taken of them unless they were long in passing. In spite of his pallor, he spoke naturally enough.

"Yes, I have seen such a face. But many women—Southern women, especially—have that look of being absorbed in what one is saying; it is a pretty trick of theirs. Won't you sit down, too, on this old bench? It is so warm yet, we may as well rest a little and walk when it is dusk and cooler."

She sat down beside him, a pleasant picture to look at in her white lawn in which, at Ellen's suggestion, she now made of herself, in the afternoons, a figure less severe than in her uniform. She had even added a touch of turquoise to the chaste whiteness of the dress, a colour which brought out the beauty of her deep blue eyes and fair cheeks and even lent warmth to the pale hues of her hair.

"If you want to sit here, Dr. Leaver, I might run across and bring the book we are reading. Would you like to hear a chapter?"

"Thank you, not to-night. It's a great book, and stirs the blood with its attempt to tell the story of a war whose real story can never be told by any one, no matter what skill the historian brings to the telling. But I'm not in the mood for it to-night. I wonder if, instead, you won't tell me a bit about yourself. You've never said a word about the work you do with my friend, Dr. Burns. Do you like it?"

She hesitated. Was this a safe subject, she wondered, for a surgeon who, she understood, had broken down from overwork? But the question had been asked.

"Very much," she answered, quietly. "One could hardly help liking work under Dr. Burns."

"Why? Do you think him a fine operator?"

"Very fine. He is considered the best in the city, now, I believe, even though his office is out here in the village. Of course it is not a great city, but his reputation extends out into the towns around."

"He is an enthusiast in his profession, I know. And you are one in yours, I see."

"Do you see it, Dr. Leaver? I thought I spoke quite moderately."

"So moderately that I recognized the restraint. You assist Dr. Burns whenever he operates?"

"Yes—if I am free."

"He can't have been doing much lately, then."

She glanced at him. He was still leaning back against the apple-tree trunk, but his eyes were open and regarding her rather closely. They were eyes whose powers of discernment, as Burns had said, one could not hope easily to elude.

"He is so interested in your recovery, Dr. Leaver, that he is willing, anxious, to spare me. There are other capable assistants, plenty of them."

"But none trained to his hand, as you are trained."

In spite of herself, the quick colour rose in a wave and bathed her face in its tell-tale glow. He smiled.

"I see. It's worth everything to an operator to have a right-hand man—or woman—like that. One doesn't often find a woman capable of taking the part, but, when one is, she is like a second brain to the operator. Well, I'll soon release you. I don't need to be coddled now, though it's very pleasant. I shall remember these walks and talks and hours with books. If one must be disabled, it's much to be looked after by one who seems a friend."

"But—Dr Leaver!—" She spoke in some alarm. "You mustn't talk of dismissing me like this—unless you are dissatisfied with me. I know Dr. Burns is taking great satisfaction in having me give my time to you. If I am helping you at all—"

"You are. But—I must help myself.... Never mind." He closed his eyes again. "Tell me about yourself—as Dr. Burns's assistant. Do you enjoy making things ready for him?"

She saw that he would have it, so she answered. "Yes, I suppose I take pride in having everything as he will want it. I know quite well what he wants, by this time."

"Yes. And he can depend on you. When the time comes for the start, you have yourself well in hand? No quick pulse—short breath?"

"Why, it would not be possible, I suppose, to be so self-controlled as that. Even Dr. Burns is not. He has told me, more than once, that his heart is pounding like an engine when he goes into an operation, or when he faces an unexpected emergency, in the course of it."

"Ah!... But it doesn't affect his work—or yours—this racing of the engine?"

"One forgets it, I think, when one is once at work. Dr. Leaver, look at that squirrel! Out on the roof of the house—at the back. Do you see him peering over at us? Inquisitive little creature!"

"Like myself. Yes, I see his small majesty. Well, tell me, please, why you like the work so much? You wouldn't give it up?"

She drew a quick breath. "Oh, no!"

"And the reason why you like it—am I too curious? Do you mind telling me?"

"Why, not at all. I can—hardly tell you, though, what it is that makes me like it. Of course, I'm happy to have a hand, even though it's only an assistant's hand, in saving life. But—the life isn't always saved. I suppose, the real secret of it is one likes to be doing the thing one can do best."

"That's it!" He drew a heavy breath. "The thing one can do best. And when that thing is the setting poor, disabled human machinery straight—making it run smoothly again! One can hardly imagine turning one's hand to—book-binding, making things in brass, dressing dolls, to take up one's time, occupy one's mind, keep one's hands busy, after having known the practice of a profession like that!"

He got up from the bench and strode a few paces with a quick, impatient step, such as she had never seen him take. Then, wheeling suddenly, he came back to the bench and dropped upon it, breathing short. She had instantly to his support a small bottle of strong salts which she always carried, but for a moment she feared that this might not be stimulant enough to a heart still inclined to be erratic upon small provocation. She laid anxious fingers upon his pulse, but found it already steadying.

"This will be over in a minute," she said quietly. "Soon, you will have got above such bothersome minutes. I shouldn't have let you talk about a thing which means so much to you."

"No, I can't even talk about it," he said. "I'm as much of an infernal hypochondriac as that. I beg your pardon—" and he set his lips.

They sat in silence for a little. Then, suddenly a voice hailed them—a cheerful, familiar voice.

"'Under the spreading chestnut-tree?' Or is it an apple? May I join the party?"

Redfield Pepper Burns appeared, looking like a schoolboy lately released from imprisonment. But his face sobered somewhat as his eye fell upon his friend. It was not that John Leaver had not looked up with a smile, as Burns approached, nor was it that he now showed physical distress of any significant sort. A certain hard expression of the deep-set eye told the story to one who could read signs.

"There's a caller for you at the house, Miss Mathewson," said Burns.

As she went away he dropped down upon the grass near Leaver. "It's at least five degrees cooler under this tree," said he, "than in any outdoor spot I've found yet."

"Work must have been trying to-day."

"Rather. But so much worse for my patients that I haven't thought much about it for myself. At two places I had the satisfaction of personally seeing to the moving of the invalid from a little six-by-nine inferno of a bedroom to a big and airy sitting-room. It gave me the keenest pleasure to see it hurt the tidy housewife, who didn't want her best room mussed up." He chuckled. "In one case I made her take down the stuffy lace window-curtains and open things up in great shape. She came near having a convulsion on the spot. Curious how a certain type of mind regards any little innovation like that. That woman would have let her unlucky husband smother to death in that oven before it would have occurred to her to move him out of it."

"I rather wonder at your continuing to practise in a village like this, with that sort of people, when you have so much city work, and could do a large business with a city office."

Burns stretched out an arm, thrusting his hand deep into the long grass. "That sort—narrow-minded people—aren't all found in the country, though—not by a long shot. I've sometimes thought I'd take an office in town, but, when it comes to making the move, I can't bring myself to it. You see, I happen to like it out here, and I like the village work. This way I get both sorts. I don't know why one's ambition should be all for city work. The people out here need me just as much as those where the streets are paved. There's a heap more fresh air and sunshine and liberty here than in town. And, as for being busy, there are only twenty-four hours in the day, anywhere."

"And you fill the most of those full. So you do. Yet, I should think your love for surgery would lead you to take up an exclusive surgical practice. You could make a name. You have a good-sized reputation already, with your ability you could make it a great one."

Burns looked at Leaver. The two men regarded each other with a sudden fresh interest, a sudden wonder as to the operation of each other's minds. The man on the bench, broken down by just such a life as he recommended to his friend, looked at the man on the grass, unworn and vigorous, and questioned whether, with all his virtues, Burns were really possessed of the proper ambition. The man on the grass, aware of large interests in his busy life, looked at the man on the bench, whose interests were at present wholly concerned with recovering his health, and wondered what insanity it was which bound his fellow mortal's brain that he could not see things in their right values. There was a long minute's silence. Then Burns, lying at full length upon his side in the warm grass, his head propped upon his elbow, began, in a thoughtful tone:

"Ever since a period early in our acquaintance my wife and I have had a vision before us. It was one that, curiously enough, we both had separately first, and then discovered, by accident, that it was mutual. The time has come when we are to carry it out. My wife has bought an old place, in the real country, three miles out on a road that turns off from the main road to the city. She is going to fit it up for a hospital for crippled children, curables, mostly, though her heart may lead her into keeping a few of the other sort, if there is no other home for them to go to. I'm to have the distinguished honour of being surgeon to the place."

He made this final announcement in the tone in which he might have made it if it had been that of an appointment to the greatest position the country could have given him.

"Well," said Leaver, after a moment, his weary eyes still studying Burns's face, "that is a fine thing for you two to do. I can see that such an interest might well hold a man away from an ordinary city practice. There is no children's hospital near here, then?"

"None at all. Children's wards, of course, but nothing like what ought to be. Of course we can't take care of the surplus. It will be only special cases, here and there, that we shall try to handle. But I'm meeting with those every day—cases where the country air and the country fare are almost as much a part of the cure as the surgical interference. My word! but it will be a satisfaction to bundle the poor little chaps off to our farm!"

His eyes were very bright. He lay smiling to himself for a minute, then he sat up.

"In a month," said he, "we shall be ready for business. I have four little patients waiting now for the place. On three of them I'm going to operate at once. On the fourth—you are."

Again the two pairs of eyes met—hazel eyes confident and determined, brown eyes startled, stabbed with sudden pain. Burns held up his hand.

"Don't say a word," he commanded. "I'm merely making an assertion. I'm willing to back it up by argument, if you like, though I'd rather not. In fact, I'd much rather not. I prefer simply to make the assertion, and let it sink in."

But Leaver would speak. "You forget," he said, bitterly, "that I've put all that behind me. I told you I should never operate again. I meant it."

"Yes, you meant it," said Burns comfortably. "A man means it when he swears he'll never do again something that has become second nature to him to do. He'll do it—he's made that way. You will do this thing, and do it with all your old grip and skill. But I'm not going to discuss it with you. Some day, if you are good, I'll describe the case to you. It's one you can handle better than I, and it's going to be up to you."

He got to his feet, ignoring the slow shaking of Leaver's downbent head. "By the way," he said, with a glance at the cottage, now a mere blur in the oncoming twilight, "have you heard of the young photographer who is to sweep down upon us and make wonderful, dream-like images of us all, for good hard cash and fame? A friend of my wife's: a girl who looks twenty-five, but is a bit more, I am told. A remarkably good-looking, not to say fascinating, person with a grandmother still more fascinating—at least to me. They are to come as soon as this rookery can be made habitable."

"Miss Mathewson spoke of it. It will be an interesting event to the village, I should suppose. But I shall not be among the victims of the lady's art. I may as well tell you, Red—I must get away next week."

Burns wheeled upon him. "What's that you say?"

The other proceeded with evident effort, laying his head back against the tree-trunk again. "I am as grateful to you and Mrs. Burns as a man can possibly be, so grateful that I can't put it into words—"

"Don't try. Go on to something more important."

"I have trespassed on your hospitality—"

"Don't use hackneyed phrases like that. Say something original."

—"as long as I can be willing to do it. I am as much improved as I can expect to be—for a long time. I can't hang on, a useless invalid on your hands—"

"Cut it, old man! You're not an invalid, and you're not useless. You're giving me one of the most interesting studies I've engaged in in a long time. I'm liable to write a book on you, when I get sufficient data."

Leaver smiled faintly. "Nevertheless, I can't do it, Red. You wouldn't do it in my place. Be honest—would you?"

"Probably not. I'd be just pig-headed fool enough to argue the case to myself precisely as you are doing. Well, Jack, I've expected this hour. It's a pity there isn't more faith and trust in friendship in the world. We're all deadly afraid of trying our friends too far, so after just about so long we strike out for ourselves. But since it is as it is, and you're growing restless, I'll agree that you leave us, if you'll stay for a while where you'll be under my observation. I've set my heart on making a complete cure in this case—or, rather, you understand, assisting Nature to do so. If you go off somewhere I shall lose track of you. Suppose you stay in the village here for a while longer. I know a splendid place for you, just round the corner. Quiet, pleasant home, middle-aged widow and her young son—a lady, and a sensible, cheerful one—she'll never bore you by talk unless you feel like it—and then the talk will be worth while. What do you say? You know perfectly well that you're not yet quite fit to shift for yourself. Be rational, and let me manage things for you a while longer."

Leaver stood up; in the dim light Burns could not see his face. But he heard his voice—one which showed tension.

"You don't know what you're asking, old friend. There are reasons why I feel like getting away, entirely apart from any conditions under your control. Yet since you ask it of me, and I owe you so much, and since—I suppose it doesn't really make much difference where I am—I'll stay for the present."

"Good! I'm much obliged, Jack."

Burns got up, also, and the two strolled away together, in the pleasant summer dusk.