t's all."

William Wetherell was "just tuckered." The great Dr. Coles, authority on
pulmonary troubles, who came all the way from Boston, could give no
better verdict than that. It was Jethro Bass who had induced Dr. Coles to
come to Coniston--much against the great man's inclination, and to the
detriment of his patients: Jethro who, on receiving Cynthia's note, had
left the capital on the next train and had come to Coniston, and had at
once gone to Boston for the specialist.

"I do not know why I came," said the famous physician to Dr. Abraham
Rowell of Tarleton, "I never shall know. There is something about that
man Jethro Bass which compels you to do his will. He has a most
extraordinary personality. Is this storekeeper a great friend of his?"

"The only intimate friend he had in the world," answered Dr. Rowell;
"none of us could ever understand it. And as for the girl, Jethro Bass
worships her."

"If nursing could cure him, I'd trust her to do it. She's a natural-born
nurse."

The two physicians were talking in low tones in the little garden behind
the store when Jethro came out of the doorway.

"He looks as if he were suffering too," said the Boston physician, and he
walked toward Jethro and laid a hand upon his shoulders. "I give him
until winter, my friend," said Dr. Coles.

Jethro Bass sat down on the doorstep--on that same millstone where he had
talked with Cynthia many years before--and was silent for a long while.
The doctor was used to scenes of sorrow, but the sight of this man's
suffering unnerved him, and he turned from it.

"D-doctor?" said Jethro, at last.

The doctor turned again: "Yes?" he said.

"D-doctor--if Wetherell hadn't b'en to the capital would he have
lived--if he hadn't been to the capital?"

"My friend," said Dr. Coles, "if Mr. Wetherell had always lived in a warm
house, and had always been well fed, and helped over the rough places and
shielded from the storms, he might have lived longer. It is a marvel to
me that he has lived so long."

And then the doctor went way, back to Boston. Many times in his long
professional life had the veil been lifted for him--a little. But as he
sat in the train he said to himself that in this visit to the hamlet of
Coniston he had had the strangest glimpse of all. William Wetherell
rallied, as Dr. Coles had predicted, from that first sharp attack, and
one morning they brought up a reclining chair which belonged to Mr.
Satterlee, the minister,