Down through the valley ran a shallow river, making noisy pretensions to

both depth and fury. He remembered just such a river in the Tyrol, with

this same Wilson on a rock, holding the hand of a pretty Austrian girl,

while he snapped the shutter of a camera. He had that picture somewhere

now; but the girl was dead, and, of the three, Wilson was the only one who

had met life and vanquished it.

"I've known him all my life," Sidney said at last. "You're perfectly right

about one thing: I talk about him and I think about him. I'm being candid,

because what's the use of being friends if we're not frank? I admire

him--you'd have to see him in the hospital, with every one deferring to him

Advertisement..

and all that, to understand. And when you think of a manlike that, who

holds life and death in his hands, of course you rather thrill. I--I

honestly believe that's all there is to it."

"If that's the whole thing, that's hardly a mad passion." He tried to

smile; succeeded faintly.

"Well, of course, there's this, too. I know he'll never look at me. I'll

be one of forty nurses; indeed, for three months I'll be only a

probationer. He'll probably never even remember I'm in the hospital at

all."

"I see. Then, if you thought he was in love with you, things would be

different?"

"If I thought Dr. Max Wilson was in love with me," said Sidney solemnly,

"I'd go out of my head with joy."

One of the new qualities that K. Le Moyne was cultivating was of living

each day for itself. Having no past and no future, each day was worth

exactly what it brought. He was to look back to this day with mingled

feelings: sheer gladness at being out in the open with Sidney; the memory

of the shock with which he realized that she was, unknown to herself,

already in the throes of a romantic attachment for Wilson; and, long, long

after, when he had gone down to the depths with her and saved her by his

steady hand, with something of mirth for the untoward happening that closed

the day.

Sidney fell into the river.

They had released Reginald, released him with the tribute of a shamefaced

tear on Sidney's part, and a handful of chestnuts from K. The little

squirrel had squeaked his gladness, and, tail erect, had darted into the

grass.

"Ungrateful little beast!" said Sidney, and dried her eyes. "Do you

suppose he'll ever think of the nuts again, or find them?"




Most Popular