; and
the salad waiting for his skilled hand only gave him an extra feeling of
fatigue.

Most men in a like state say, "I don't know what's the matter with me,"
and yet many a one has been stimulated out of it, away from it, by the
soft voice and friendly hand of a woman.

There was, however, no woman to distract the overworked Young Doctor by
her freshness, drawn from the reservoir of her vitality; and that was
a pity, because, as Patsy Kernaghan many a time said: "Aw, Doctor dear,
what's the good of a tongue to a wagon if there's only wan horse to draw
it! Shure, you'll think a lot more of yourself whin you're able to
stand at the head of your own table and say grace for two at least, and
thanksgiving for manny, if it's the will of God."

The Young Doctor did not know why he was so brittle, but the truth is he
was feeding on himself, and that is a poor business. Every dog knows it
is good to feed on the knuckle of a goat if he hasn't got a beefbone,
and every real man knows--though to know anything at all he must have
been married--that any marriage is better than no marriage at all;
because whether it's happy or unhappy, it makes you concerned for some
one besides yourself, if you have any soul or sense at all.

The Young Doctor was under the delusion that he loved his lonely table
and the making of a simple salad for a simple man, but then he came from
Ireland and had imagination; and that is always a curse when it isn't
a blessing, for there is nothing between the two. At the end of his
troubled day he almost cursed the salad as it crinkled in the dish just
slightly rubbed with garlic. He was turning away in apathy from it--from
the bones with the marrow oozing out of the ends, from the bursting
baked potatoes, from the beautiful crusts of brown bread, when he heard
the door-bell ring. At the sound his face set as though it were mortar.
He wanted no patients this night; but from the peremptory sound of the
bell he was sure some one had come who needed medicine or the knife, and
he could refuse neither; for was he not at everybody's beck and call,
the Medicine Man whose door was everybody's door!

"Damnation!" he said aloud, and turned towards the door expectantly.

Then he bitted himself to wait; and he did not wait long. Presently
he heard a voice say, "I must see him," and the door opened wide, and
Louise Mazarine stepped into the room. Her face was pale and distraught;
her blue eyes, with their long, melan