ough to be fairly intimate. Anyway,
I've conceived a sort of respect for you that I never expected to have.
And if you'll take a word of advice from a friend who wishes you well,
you won't regret it."

The thin lips began to smile. "Delighted to listen to your advice,
Doctor. I suspect I'm not obliged to follow it."

"You will please yourself, no doubt," Capper rejoined drily. "But my
advice is, don't stay away too long. Your place is here."

"You think so?" said Nap.

"I am quite sure," Capper said, with emphasis.

"And you think I shall please myself by going?"

"Who else?" said Capper almost sternly.

Nap did not instantly reply. He was lying back with his face in shadow.
When he spoke at length it was with extreme deliberation. Capper divined
that it was an effort to him to speak at all.

"You're a family friend," he said. "I guess you've a right to know. It
isn't for my own sake I'm going at all. It's for--hers, and because of a
promise I made to Luke. If I were to stop, I'd be a cur--and worse. She'd
take me without counting the cost. She is a woman who never thinks of
herself. I've got to think for her. I've sworn to play the straight game,
and I'll play it. That's why I won't so much as look into her face again
till I know that I can be to her what Luke would have been--what Bertie
is to Dot--what every man who is a man ought to be to the woman he has
made his wife."

He flung his arms up above his head and remained tense for several
seconds. Then abruptly he relaxed.

"I'll be a friend to her," he said, "a friend that she can
trust--or nothing!"

There came a very kindly look into Capper's green eyes, but he made no
comment of any sort. He only turned aside to take up the glass he had set
down on entering. And as he did so, he smiled as a man well pleased.

Once during the night he looked in upon Nap and found him sleeping,
wrapt in a deep and silent slumber, motionless as death. He stood awhile
watching the harsh face with its grim mouth and iron jaw, and slowly a
certain pity dawned in his own. The man had suffered infernally before he
had found his manhood. He had passed through raging fires that had left
their mark upon him for the rest of his life.

"It's been an almighty big struggle, poor devil," said Capper, "but it's
made a man of you."

He left early on the following day, accompanied by Tawny Hudson, whose
docility was only out-matched by his very obvious desire to be gone.

True to