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Show roomer lievo nny more. I have always received infinitely more -than 1 have paid for, even in the small services 1 have lieen ahle to render. Your Aunt Harriet is prosperous. You are away, and some day you are going to be married. mar-ried. Don't you see I am not needed?" "That does not mean you are not wanted." "1 .shall not go far. I'll always be near enough, so that I can see you" he changed (his hastily "so that we can still meet and talk things over. Old friends ought to be like that, not too near, but to be turned on when needed, like a tap." "Where will you go?" "The Itosenfelds are rather in straits-I straits-I thought of helping them to get a small house somewhere and of taking a room with them. It's largely a matter mat-ter of furniture. If they could furnish it even plainly, it could be done. I haven't saved anything." "Do you ever think of yourself?" she cried. "Have you always gone through life helping people, K. ? Save anything! I should think not ! You spend it all on others." She bent over and put her hand on his shoulder. "It will not be home without you, K." To save him, he could not have spoken spok-en just then. A riot of rebellion surged ; up in him, that he must let this best j thing in his life go out of it. To go i SIDNEY SURRENDERS, BUT WITH AN UNEASY FEELING, AND K. DECIDES TO LEAVE "THE STREET" CAR-LOTTA CAR-LOTTA LAYS A TRAP FOR DR. MAX WILSON Sidney Pake is a hospital nurse loved by Dr. Max Wilson, a brilliant bril-liant young sjjrgeon ; by K. LeMoyne, a roomer at the Page home ; and by Joe Drummond, an old school mate. Wilson is fickle, and while he makes honest love to Sidney, he carries on a sneaking affair with Cnrlotta Harrison, another nurse who is jealous and dangerous. LeMoyne, Le-Moyne, who is a famous surgeon disguised, keeps his love secret to himself. Joe has been rejected, and is acting strangely. Nobody knows anything about LeMoyne, except Doctor Wilson. When this installment in-stallment opens, Wilson is proposing marriage to Sidney. zz J attend to your wedding things, Sidney. We'll show this street that even Christine Chris-tine Lorenz can be outdone." And, as an afterthought : "I hope Max Wilson Wil-son will settle down now. He's been none too steady." It was late when K. got home. Sidney Sid-ney was sitting on the low step, wait-. wait-. ing for him. With a long breath of content, K. folded up his long length on the step below her. "Well, dear ministering angel," he said, "how- goes the world?" "Things have been happening, K." He sat erect and looked at her. It was a moment before he spoke. He sat looking ahead, his face set. When, after a moment, he spoke, it was to forestall her, after all. "I think I know what it is, Sidney." "You expected it, didn't you?" "I it's not an entire surprise." "Aren't you going to wish me happiness?" hap-piness?" "If my wishing could bring anything good to you, you would have everything every-thing in the world." His voice was not entirely steady, but his eyes smiled into hers. "Am I are we going to lose you soon?" "I shall finish my training. I made that a condition." Then, in a burst of confidence : "I know so little, K., and he knows so much ! I am going to read and study, so that he can talk to me about his work. That's what marriage ought . to be, a sort of partnership. Don't you think so?" K. nodded. His mind refused to go forward to the unthinkable future. Instead, In-stead, he was looking back back to those days when he had hoped sometime some-time to have a wife to talk to about his work, that beloved work that was no longer his. And he had lost her absolutely, lost her without a struggle to keep her. His only struggle had been with himself, to remember that he had nothing to offer but failure. Sidney's eyes were on the tall house across. It was Doctor Ed's evening office hour, and through the open window win-dow she could see a line of people waiting their turn. They sat immobile, inert, doggedly patient, until the open- terne is a long step back. lie had to endure the good-humored contempt of the older men, the patronizing insl ructions ruc-tions of nurses its to rules. Carlo! In alone treated him with deference. def-erence. His uneasy rounds in Carlotta's precinct took on the state and form of stall visitations. She flattered, cajoled, looked up to him. After a time it dawned on Wilson that this junior cub was getting more attention than himself; that, wherever he happened to be, somewhere in the offing would be Carlotta and the Lamb, the latter eyeing her with worship. Her indifference had only piqued him. The enthroning of a successor galled Uiiu. Between them, the Lamb suffered mightily was subject to frequent "bawling out," as he termed it, in the operating room as he assisted the anesthetist. an-esthetist. He took his troubles to Carlotta, Car-lotta, who soothed him in the corridor in plain sight of her quarry, of course by putting a sympathetic hand on his sleeve. Then, one day, Wilson was goaded to speech. "For the love of heaven, Carlotta," ho said impatiently, "stop making love to that wretched boy. He wriggles like a worm if you look at him." "I like him. He is thoroughly genuine. genu-ine. I respect him, and he respects me." "It's rather a silly game, you know. Do you think I don't understand?" "Perhaps you do. I I don't really care a lot about him, Max. But I've been downhearted. He cheers me up." Her attraction for him was almost gone not quite. He felt rather sorry for her. "I'm sorry. Then you are not angry with me?" "Angry? No." She lifted her eyes to his, and for once she was not acting. "I knew it would end, of course. I have lost a a lover. I "expected that. But I wanted to keep a friend." It was the right note. Why, after all, should he not be her friend? He had treated her cruelly, hideously. If she still desired his friendship, there was i no disloyalty to Sidney in giving it. And . Carlotta was very careful. Not once again did she allow him to see what lay in her eyes. She told him of her worries. wor-ries. The Lamb was hovering near, hot eyes on them both. It was no place to talk. Sidney would be at a lecture that night. The evening loomed temptingly free. "Suppose you meet me at the old corner," cor-ner," he said carelessly, eyes on the Lamb, who was forgetting that he was only a junior interne and was glaring ferociously. "We'll run out- into the country and talk things over." She demurred, with her heart beating triumphantly. "What's the use of going back to that? It's over, isn't it?" Her objection made him determined. When at last she had yielded, and he made his way down to the smoking room, it was with the feeling that he had won a victory. K. had been uneasy all that day; his ledgers irritated him. . He had been sleeping badly since Sidney's announcement announce-ment of her engagement. At five o'clock, when he left the office, he found Joe Drummond waiting outside on the pavement. "Mother said you'd been up to see me a couple of times. I thought I'd come around." K. looked at his watch. "What do you say to a walk?" "Not out in the country. I'm not as muscular as' you are. I'll go about town for a half-hour or so." Thus forestalled, K. found his subject sub-ject hard to lead up to. But here again Joe met him more than half-way. "Well, go on," he said, when they found themselves in the ftark ; "I guess I know what you are going to say." "I'm not going to preach, if you're expecting that. Ordinarily, if a man insists on making a fool of himself, I let him alone." "Why make an exception of me?" "One reason is that I happen to like you. The other reason is that, whether you admit it or not, you are acting like a young idiot, and are putting the responsibility on the shoulders of someone else." "She is responsible, isn't she?" "Not in the least How old are you, Joe?" "Twenty-three, almost," "Exactly. You are a man, and you are acting like a bad boy. It's a disappointment dis-appointment to me. It's more than that to Sidney." "Much she cares ! She's going to marry Wilson, isn't she?" "There is no announcement of any engagement." "She is, and you know it Well, she'll be happy not ! If I'd go to her tonight and tell her what I know, she'd never see him again." The idea, thus born in his overwrought over-wrought brain, obsessed him. He turned to it again and again. Le Moyne was uneasy. He was not certain cer-tain that the boy's statement had any basis in fact. His single determination determina-tion was to save Sidney from any pain. Events of the most amazing and momentous character are recounted in the next installment. install-ment. Things happen which change the whole course of life for LeMoyne, Doctor Max, Sidney, Sid-ney, Joe Drummond and some others. It is the climax of tho story. (TO BE COiXTINUED.) CHAPTER XIX Continued. 15 "You are not a child any longer, Sidney. Sid-ney. You have learned a great deal in this last year. One of the things you know is that almost every man has small affairs, many of them sometimes, some-times, before he finds the woman he wants to marry. When he finds her, the others are all off there's nothing to them. It's the real thing then, instead in-stead of the sham." "Palmer was very much in love with Christine, and yet " "Palmer is a cad." "I don't want you to think I'm making mak-ing terms. I'm not. But if this thing went on, and I found out afterward that you that there was anyone else, it would kill me." "Then you care, after all !" There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture with which he held out his arms, like a child who has escaped a whipping. He stood up and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet. "You love me, dear." "I'm afraid I do, Max." "Then I'm yours, and only yours, if r-' you want me," he said, and took her in his arms. He was riotously happy, must hold her off for the joy of drawing her to him again, must pull off her gloves and kiss her soft bare palms. "I love. you, love you!" he cried, and bent down to bury his face in the warm hollow of her neck. Sidney glowed under his caress was rather startled at his passion, a little ashamed. "Tell me you love me a little bit. Say it." "Ilove you," said Sidney, and flushed scarlet. But even in his arms, with the warm sunlight on his radiant face, with his lips to her ear, whispering the divine absurdities of passion, in the back of her obstinate little head was tho thought that while she had given him her first embrace, he had held other women in his arms. It made her passive, pas-sive, prevented her complete surrender. surren-der. She broke the news of her engagement engage-ment to K. herself, the evening of the same day. The little house was quiet when she got out of the car at the door. Harriet was asleep on the couch at the foot of her bed, and Christine's rooms were empty. She went upstairs to the room that had been her mother's, moth-er's, and took off her hat. She wanted to be alone, to realize what had happened hap-pened to her. A year ago her half promise to Joe had gratified her sense of romance. She was loved, and she had thrilled to it. But this was different. Marriage, that had been but a vision then, loomed large, almost menacing. She had learned the lav of compensation : that for every joy one pays in suffering. Women who married went down into the valley of death for their children. One must love and be loved very tenderly ten-derly to pay for that. The scale must balance. Harriet was stirring, across the hall. Sidney could hear her moving about with flat, inelastic steps. That was the alternative. One mar-- mar-- ried, happily or not as the case might be, and took the risk. Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing a little hard, exchanging slimness for leanness lean-ness and austerity of figure, flat-chested, thin-voiced. All at once it seemed very terrible to her. She felt as if she had been caught in an Inexorable hand that had closed about her. Harriet found her a little later, face down on her mother's bed crying as if her heart would break. She scolded her roundly. "You've been overworking," she said. "You've been getting thinner. Your measurements for that suit showed it. I have never approved of this hospital training, and after last January " She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen with weeping, weep-ing, told her of her engagement. "But I don't understand. If you care for him and he has asked you to marry him, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?" "I do care. I don't know vJiy I cried. It just came over me, all at once, that I It was Just foolishness. I am very happy, Aunt Harriet" Harriet thought she understood. The girl needed her mother, and she, Harriet, Har-riet, was a hard, middle-aged woman nd a poor substitute. She patted Sidney's Sid-ney's moist hand. "T f jese 1 understand," she said. "I'll ( "It W ill Nut Be norne A unoui ou, K." empty of heart through the rest of his days, while his very arms ached to hold her ! And she was so near just above, with her hand on his shoulder, her wistful face so close that, without moving, mov-ing, he could have brushed her hair. "You have not wished me happiness, K. Do you remember, when I wasgo-ing wasgo-ing to the hospital and you gave me the little watch do you remember what you said?" "Yes" huskily. "Will you say it again?" "But that was good-bye." "Isn't this, in a way? You are going go-ing to leave us, and I say it, K." "Good-by, dear, and God bless you." CHAPTER XX. The announcement of Sidney's engagement en-gagement was not to be made for a year. ... Wilson, chafing under the delay, was obliged to admit to himself that it was best. He was genuinely in love, even unselfishly as far as he could be unselfish. The secret was to be carefully kept also for Sidney's sake. The hospital did not approve of engagements en-gagements between nurses and the staff. It was disorganizing, bad for discipline. Sidney was very happy all that summer. sum-mer. She glowed with pride when her lover put through a difficult piece of work ; flushed and palpitated when she heard his praises sung ; grew to know, by a sort of intuition, when he was in the house. She wore his ring on a line chain around her neck, and grew prettier every day. K. had postponed his leaving until fall. Sidney had been Insistent, and Harriet had topped the argument in her businesslike way. "If you insist on being an idiot and adopting the Ro-senfeld Ro-senfeld family," she said, "wait until September. The season for boarders doesn't begin until fall." So K. waited for "the season," and ate his heart out for Sidney in the interval. in-terval. Johnny Rosenfeld still lay in his ward, inert from the waist down. K. was his most frequent visitor. As a matter of fact, he was watching the boy closely, at Max Wilson's request. "Tell me when I'm to do it," said Wilson, Wil-son, "and when the time comes, for God's sake, stand by me. Come to the operation. He's got so much confidence that I'll help him that I don't dare to fail." 7 uckily for Sidney, her three months' service in the operating room kept her and Carlotta apart. For Carlotta was now not merely jealous. She found herself neglected, ignored. It ate her like a fever. But she did not yet suspect an engagement en-gagement It had been her theory that Wilson would not marry easily that, in a sense, he would have to be coerced co-erced into marriage. She thought merely mere-ly that Sidney was playing a game like her own, with different weapons. So she planned her bxttle, ignorant that she had lost already. Her method was simple enough. A new interne had come into the house, "I Love You," Said Sidney. ing of the back office door promoted them all one chair toward the consulting consult-ing room. "I shall be just across the Street," she said at last. "Nearer than I am at the hospital." "Y'ou will be much farther away. You will be married." "But we will still be friends, K?" Her voice was anxious, a little puzzled. puz-zled. She was often puzzled with him. "Of course." But, after another silence, he astounded as-tounded her. She had fallen into the way of thinking of him as always belonging be-longing to the house, even, in a sense, belonging to her. And now "Shall you mind very much if I tell you that I am thinking of going away?" "K. !" "My dear child, you do not need a and was going through the process of learning that from a senior at the medical medi-cal school to a half-baked junior in- |