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Show CHAPTER XXV. Continued. I "Why Dot?" Wilson dcmaudi '1, half li'- ! riliilily. "Tin! secret i.s out. Kvi-rylmdy l.i n i s wliu yuii nrr. Ami now, because a 1m' wIid wouldn't Lave lived anyhow any-how " Tlml's not It," K. put In luulily. "I 1 now all Unit. I guess I could do It and get away Willi it as well as the iivi-nige. All that ih.li-i'.s me I've never told you, have I, why I gave tip before?" be-fore?" Wilson was propped up in his lied. K. was walking restlessly about the room, as was his habit when troubled. "I've beard the gossip; that's till." "You know what I always felt about the profession, llax. Vi'e went Into that more than once In Berlin. Eilher one's best or nothing. I had done pretty well. When I left Lurch and built my own hospital, I hadn't a doubt of myself. And because I was gelling resells I got a lot of advertising. Men began coining to the clinics. I found I was making enough out of the patients who could pay to add a few free wards. I want to tell you now, Wilson, Unit the opening of those free wards was . the greatest self-indulgence I ever per-mi!ted per-mi!ted myself. I'd seen so much careless care-less attention given the poor well, never mind that. It was almost three years ago that things began to go w rong'. I lost a big case." "1 know. All this doesn't influence me, r.dwardes." "Wait a moment. We bad a system in the operating room as perfect as I could devise it. 1 never finished an operation without having my first assistant as-sistant verify the clip and sponge count, lint that tirst case died because i sponge bad been left in the operating tield. You know bow those things go ; you can't always see them, and one goes by the count, after reasonable caution. Then I almost lost another case in the same way a free case. "As well as I could tell, the precautions precau-tions had uot been relaxed. I was doing do-ing from four to six cases a day. After itbe second one I almost went crazy. I made up my mind, if there was ever .another, I'd give up and go away." "There was another ?" "Not for several months. When the last case died, a free case again, I performed per-formed my own autopsy. I allowed only my first assistant in the room. He was almost as frenzied as I was. It was the same thing ngain. When I told him I was going away, he offered to take the blame himself, to say he had closed the incision. He tried to make me think he was responsible. I .knew better." "It's" incredible." "Exactly; but it's true. The last patient pa-tient was a laborer. He left a family. I've sent them money from time to time. I used to sit and think about 'lie children he left, and what would become of them. The ironic part of it was that, for all that had happened, I was busier all the time. Men were sending uie cases from all over the country. It was either stay and keep on working, with that chance, or quit. 1 quit." "Hut if you had stayed, and taken e-xtra precautions " "We'd taken every precaution we knew." Neither of the men spoke for a time. K. stood, his tall figure outlined against the window. "That's the worst, is it?" Max Wilson Wil-son demanded at last. -"That's enough." "It's extremely significant. You had in enemy somewhere on your staff, probably. This profession of ours is a big one. but you know its jealousies. 2. ef a man get his shoulders above the crowd, and the pack is after him." He laughed a little. "Jlixed figure, but you know what I mean." K. shook his head. He had bad that gift of the big man everywhere, in every profession, of securing the loyal-'y loyal-'y of his followers, lie would have trusted every one of them with his life. "You're going to do it, of course." "Take up your work?" "Yes." lie stirred restlessly. To stay on. to be near Sidney, perhaps to stand by is Wilson's best man when she was Harried it turned him cold. But he Kd not give a decided negative. The '. ". man was Hushed and growing fretful fret-ful ; it would not do to irritate him. "Give me another day on it," he said ::t last. And so the matter stood. Max's injury had been productive of rood, in one way. It bad brought the ;-"w"o brothers closer together. In the nor.i'ngs Max was restless until Doctor Doc-tor Ed arrived. Wheu he came, be brought books in the shabby bag his beloved Burns, although he needed no book for that, the "Pickwick Tapers," Kenan's "Lives of the Disciples." Very often Max would doze off; but at the ces;.a ti oil of Doctor Ed's sonorous voice the sick man would stir fretfully and demand more. It pleased the older man vastly. It remiuded him of Max's boyhood, when he had read to Max at right. For once in the last dozen years, he needed him. "Go on, Ed. What in blazes mak.es you step every five minutes?" Max pro-tl-sted, one dus Doctor Ed, wlio had only slopped to bite off tiie fin I of a stogie to bold in his cheek, picked up his book in a hurry, and eyed the invalid over it. "Slop bullying. I'll r.ad when Fjn ready. Have you any idea what 1 in reading?" "of course." "Well, I haven't. For ten minutes I've been reading across both pages I" Max laughed, and suddenly put out bis hand. Demonstrations of affection were so rare w ith him that for a juo-ment juo-ment Doctor Ed was puzzled. Then, ; rather sheepishly, he took it. j "When I get out," Max said, "we'll have to go out to the White Springs again and have supper." That was all ; but Ed understood. On the day when K. had told Max his reason for giving up his work, Sidney spent her hour with Max that evening as usual. His big chair had been drawn close to a window, aud she found him there, looking out. She kissed him. But instead of letting her draw away, he put out his arms and caught her to him. "Smile at me. You don't smile any more. You ought to smile; your mouth " "I am almost always tired; that's all, Max." She eyed him bravely. "Aren't you going to let me make love to you at all? You get away beyond be-yond my reach." "I was looking for the paper to read to you." A sudden suspicion flamed in his eyes. "Sidney, you don't like me to touch you any more. Come here where I can see you." The fear of agitating him brought her quickly. For a moment he was ap peased. "That's more like it. How lovely you are, Sidney !" lie lifted first one hand and then the other to his lips. "Are you ever going to forgive me?" ' "Lf you mean about Carlotta, I forgave for-gave that long ago." He "was almost boyishly relieved. What a wonder she was ! So lovely, and so sane. Many a woman would have held that over him for years not that he had done anything really wrong on that nightmare excursion. But so many women are exigent about promises. prom-ises. "When are you going to marry me?" "We needn't discuss that tonight, Max. Can't we talk things over when you are stronger?" Her tone caught his attention, and turned. him a little white. He faced her to the window, so that lie light fell on her. "What things? What do you mean?" lie had forced her hand. She had meant to wait; but; with his keen eyes on her, she could not dissemble. "I am going to make you very unhappy un-happy for little while." "Well?" "I've had a lot of time to think. It isn't that I am angry. I am not even jealous. I was at first. It isn't that. It's hard to make you understand. I think you care for me " "But, good heavens, Sidney, you do care for me, don't you?" "I'm afraid I don't, Max; not enough." She tried to explain, rather pitifully. After one look at his face, she spoke to the window. 'U'm so wretched about it. I thought I cared. To me you were the best and greatest man that ever lived. I when I said my prayers, I But that doesn't matter. You were a sort of god to me." He groaned under his breath. "No man could live up to that, Sidney." Sid-ney." "No. I see that now. But that's the way I cared. It's just that I never loved the real you, because I never knew you." "When he remained silent, she made an attempt to justify herself. "I'd "known .very few men," she said. "I came into the hospital, and for a time life seemed very terrible. There were wickednesses I had never heard of, and somebody always paying for them. I was always asking, Vl;y? Why? Then you would come in, and a lot of them you cured and sent out. You gave them their chance, don't you see? Until I knew about Carlotta, you always meant that to me. You were like K. always helping." The room was very silent. In the i nurses' parlor, a few feet down the corridor, cor-ridor, the nurses were at prayers. "Yea, though I walk through the valley val-ley of the shadow of death " The man in the chair stirred. He had come through the valley of the shadow, and for what? He was very bitter. He suid to himself savagely that they would better have let him die. "You say you never loved nit because you never knew me. I'm not e rottei, Sidney. Isn't it possible that tht man you cared about, who who did his best by people and all that is the real me?" She gazed at him thoughtfully. He missed something out of her eyes, the sort of luminous, wistful greatness. Measured by this new glance, so clear, so appraising, he shrank back iu'o his ' chair. "The man who did his best is q::te ' real. You have always Cor.a your l,r.t in your work; you always will. Bat the other is a part of you t.o. Max. Even if I cared, I would m t dare to! run the risk." i She tool; a stop toward, the door. hc-i:::ti.-l, came l.-n.-k, and put a li;;ht hand on his should. T. "I'm Surry, ih-ar Max." She had i.:-e: liiai l:L"ht!y on the cheek bi-fore 1. :i...v what s-he i:ii"iid-ed i:ii"iid-ed to do. So ; a-siouh-ss W as the little eare.-s that, porhr.p-i a. ore than anything any-thing else, it typified the change in their rela I ion. When the door closed behind her. he saw- that .-he had left her ring on the arm of his chair, lie picked it up. It was still warm from her finger. He held it to his lips with a quick gesture. In all his successful life he bad never before felt the bitterness of failure. The very warmth of the little ring hurt. Why hadn't they let him die? He didn't want to live he wouldn't live. Nobody cared for him ! He would His eyes, lifted from the ring, fell on the red glow of the roses that had come that morning. Even in, the half light, they glowed with fiery color. The ring was in his right hand. With the left he settled his collar aud soft silk tie. K. saw Carlotta that evening for the last time. Katie brought word to him, where be was helping Harriet close her trunk she was on her way to Europe for the fall styles that he was wanted in the lower hall. "A lady!" she said, closing the door behind her by way of caution. "And a good tiling for her she's not from the alley. The way those people beg off you is a sin and a shame, and it's not at home you're going to be to them from now ou." So K. had put on his coat and, without with-out so much as a glance in Harriet's mirror, had gone down the stairs. Carlotta Car-lotta stood under the chandelier, and he saw at once the ravages that trouble trou-ble had made in her. She was a dead white, and she looked ten years older than her age. "I came, you see, Doctor EdwTardes." Evidently she found it hard to speak. "Y'ou were to come," K. encouraged her, "to see if we couldn't plan something some-thing for you. Now, I think I've got it. You know, of course, that I closed my hospital. They are trying to persuade me to go back, and I'm trying to persuade per-suade myself that I'm fit to go back. You see," his tone was determinedly cheerful "my faith in myself has been pretty nearly gone. When one loses that, there isn't much left." "You had been very successful." She did not look up. "Well, I had and I hadn't. I'm not going to worry you about that. My offer is this : We'll just try to forget about about Schwitter's and all the rest, and if I go back I'll take you on in the operating room." "Y'ou sent me away once !" "Well, I can ask you to come back, can't I?" He smiled at her encouragingly. encour-agingly. "Are you sure you understand about Max Wilson and myself?" "Everyone makes mistakes now and then, and loving women have made mistakes mis-takes since the world began. Most people live in glass houses, Miss Har- rrrrr- 7" if A 'i 1! "I'm Sorry, Dear Max." rison. Aud don't make any mistake about this: People can always come back. No depth is too low. Ail they need is the will power." He smiled down at her. She had come armed with confession. But the offer meant reinstatement, another chance. She would work her finger-ends finger-ends off for him. She would make it I up to him in other ways. But she could ' not tell him and lose evervthmg. "Come," he said. "Shall we go back and start over again?" He held out his hand. CHAPTER XXVI. ! Late September had come. The Street had been furiously busy for a mouth. The cobblestones had gone, 1 and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt. To this general excitement the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had added its quota. One day he was in j the gas ctlice, making out statements ; that were absolutely ridiculous. And the nxt there was the news that Mr. Le Jlevae had been ouiy taking a holiday holi-day in" the i;as .ir.ee and that he was reaKv a very gr-at sur.'eou and had sav.-: I-r. Max Wilson. The Sireet. which was busy at the time ileeiihia: whether to leave the old shk-walks or to pet down cement ones, had one evening of mad excitement over the matter of K.. -not the sidewalksand side-walksand ii.cn had accepted the new rr!;i:atiori. But over the news of K.'s approaching approach-ing departure it mourned. The Street made a resolve to keep K., if possible, lf he had shewn any "I igh and mighti-a. mighti-a. s-s," as tiiey called -it, since the change in bis estate, it would have let him go without p'""test. -But when a man is the real thing so that the newspapers give a column to his hav-' hav-' ing been in the city almost two years and still goes about in the same shabby clothes, with the same friendly greeting greet-ing for everyone, it demonstrates clearly, clear-ly, as the baritone put it, that "he's got no swelled head on him ; that's sure." A little later, K., coming up the Street as he had that first day, heard the baritone singing: "Homo is the hunter, home from the hill, Aud the sailor, home from ihe sea." Home ! Why, this was home. The Street seemed to stretch out its arms to him. The 'ailanthus tree waved in the sunlight before the little house. Tree and house were old; September had touched them. Christine sat sewing sew-ing on the balcony. A boy with a piece of chalk was writing something on the new cement under the tree. He stood back, head on one side, when he had finished, and inspected his work. K. read in chalk on the smooth street : Max Wilson. Sidney Page. The baritone was still singing; but now it was "I'm twenty-one, and she's eighteen." The light was gone from K.'s face again. After all, the Street meant for him not so much home as it meant Sidney. And now, before very long, that book of his life, like others, would have to be closed. He turned and went heavily into the little house. Christine called to him from her little lit-tle balcony: , "I thought I heard your step outside. Have you time to come in?" K. went through the parlor and stood in the long window. His steady eyes looked down at her. "I see very little of you nowT," she complained. And, when he did not reply immediately: "Have you made any definite plans, K.?" "I shall do Max's work until he is able to take hold again. After that ' "You will go away?" "I think so. I am getting a good many letters, one way and another. I suppose, now I'm back in harness, I'll stay. My old place is closed. I'd go back there they want me. But it seems so futile, Christine, to leave as I did, because I felt that I had no right to go on as things were ; and now to crawl hack on the strength of having had my hand forced, and to take up things again, not knowing that I've a bit more right to do it than when I left !" "I went to see Max yesterday. You know what he thinks about all that." He took an uneasy turn up and down the balcony. "But who?" he demanded. "Who would do such a thing? I tell you, Christine, it is impossible." She did not pursue the subject. Her thoughts had flown ahead to the little house without K., to days without his steps on the stairs or the heavy creak of his big chair overhead as he dropped into it. But perhaps it would be better if he went. She had her own life to live.,, She had no expectation of happiness, but, somehow or other, she must build on the shaky foundation of her marriage mar-riage a house of life, with resignation serving for content, perhaps with fear lurking always. That she knew. But with no active misery. Misery implied affection, and her love for Palmer was quite dead. "Sidney will be here this afternoon." "Good." His tone was noncommittal. noncommit-tal. "Has it occurred to you, K., that Sidney Sid-ney is not very happy?" He stopped in front of her. "She's had a great anxiety." "She has no anxiety now. Max la I doing well." j "Then what is it?" "I'm cot quite sure, but I think I I know. She's lost faith in Max, and she's not like me. I I knew about Talmer before I married him. It's all rather hideous I needn't go into it. But Sidney has more character than I have. Max isn't what she thought he was, and I doubt whether she'll niarrv him." K. glanced toward the street where Sidney's name and Max's lay open to the sun and to the smiles of the Street. Christine might be right, but that did not alter things for Lira. Christine's thoughts went back inevitably in-evitably to herself; to Palmer, who j was doing better just new ; to K., who was going away went back with an ! ache to the night K. had taken her in his arms and then put her away. How ; wrong things were ! What a mess life ! was ! I (TO BE CONTINUED.) |