o
days after their return from the long, slow sea voyage which had done
wonders for them both, when Burns received a long-distance message which
sent him to his wife with his eyes sparkling in the old way.

"Great luck, Len!" he announced. "I'm to get my first try-out in
operating, after the late unpleasantness, on an out-of-town case. Off in
an hour with Amy for a place two hundred miles away in a spot I never
heard of--promises to be interesting. Anyhow, I feel like a small boy
with his first kite, likely to go straight off the ground hitched to the
tail of it."

"I'm glad for you, Red. And I wish"--she bit her lip and turned
away--"it may be a wonderful case."

"That's not what you started to say." He came close, laid a hand on
either side of her face, and turned it up so that he could look into it,
his lips smiling. "Tell me. I'll wager I know what you wish."

"No, you can't."

"That you could go with me--to take Amy's place and assist."

A flood of colour poured over her face, such a telltale, significant
colour as he had rarely seen there before. She would have concealed it
from him, but he was merciless. A strange, happy look came into his own
face. "Len, don't hide that from me. It's the one thing I've always
wished you'd show, and you never have. I'm such a jealous beggar myself
I've wanted you to care--that way, and I've never been able to discover
a trace of it."

"But I'm not really jealous in the way you think. How could I be?--with
not the slightest cause. It's only--envy of Amy because she is--so
necessary to you. O Red, I never, never meant to say it!"

"I'd rather hear you say it than anything else on earth. I'd like to
hear you own that you were mad with jealousy, because I've been eaten up
with it myself ever since I first laid eyes on you. Not that you've ever
given me a reason for it, but because it's my red-headed nature. Now I
must go; but I'll take your face with me, my Len, and if I do a good
piece of work it'll be for love of you."

"And of your work, Red. I'm not jealous of that; I'm too proud of it."

"I know you are, bless you."

Then he was off, all his old vigour showing in his preparations for the
hurried trip, and as he went away Ellen felt as might those on shore
watching a lusty life-saver put off in a boat to pull for a sinking
ship.

* * * * *

Burns and Amy Mathewson were away three days, during which Red kept
Ellen even more closely i