"You are now inside this magical primrose ring; and you said yourself,
a moment ago, there was no telling what might happen inside. Keep very
still; don't move, don't speak. Remember you mustn't uncover your
eyes, or the spell will be broken. Hark! Can you hear something--some
one coming nearer and nearer and nearer?"

For the space of a dozen breaths nothing could be heard in Ward C; that
is--unless one was tactless enough to mention the sound of two
throbbing hearts. One fluttered, frightened and hesitating; the other
thumped, steady and determined. Then out of the darkness came the
striking of the hospital clock on the tower--twelve long, mournful
tolls--and one of the House Surgeon's arms slipped gently about the
shoulders of Margaret MacLean.

"Dearest, the Love-Talker has turned so completely human that he has to
say at the outset he's not half good enough for you, But he wants
you--he wants you, just the same, to carry back with him to his
faery-land. It will be rather a funny little old faery-land, made up
of work and poverty--and love; but, you see, the last is so big and
strong it can shoulder the other two and never know it's carrying a
thing. If you'll only come, dearest, you can make it the finest, most
magical faeryland a man ever set up home-making in."

Another silence settled over Ward C.

"Well--" said the House Surgeon, breaking it at last and sounding a
trifle nervous. "Well--"

"I thought you said I wasn't to move or speak, or the spell would be
broken?"

"That's right, excellent nurse--followed doctor's orders exactly." He
was smiling radiantly now, only no one could see. Slowly he drew her
hands away from her eyes and kissed the lids. "You can open them if
you solemnly promise not to be disappointed when you see the
Love-Talker has stepped into an ordinary house surgeon's uniform and
looks like the--devil." With a laugh the House Surgeon gathered her
close in his arms.

"The devil was only a rebelling angel," she murmured, contentedly.

"But I'm not rebelling. Bless those trustees! If they hadn't put us
both out of the hospital we might be jogging along for the next ten
years on the wholesome, easily digested diet of friendship, and never
dreamed of the feast we were missing--like this--and this--and--"

Margaret MacLean buried her face in the uniform with a sob.

"What is it, dearest? Don't you like them?"

"I--love--them. Don't you understand? I never belonged t