he half light, they glowed with fiery
color.

The ring was in his right hand. With the left he settled his collar and
soft silk tie.

K. saw Carlotta that evening for the last time. Katie brought word to
him, where he was helping Harriet close her trunk,--she was on her way
to Europe for the fall styles,--that he was wanted in the lower hall.

"A lady!" she said, closing the door behind her by way of caution. "And
a good thing for her she's not from the alley. The way those people beg
off you is a sin and a shame, and it's not at home you're going to be to
them from now on."

So K. had put on his coat and, without so much as a glance in Harriet's
mirror, had gone down the stairs. Carlotta was in the lower hall. She
stood under the chandelier, and he saw at once the ravages that trouble
had made in her. She was a dead white, and she looked ten years older
than her age.

"I came, you see, Dr. Edwardes."

Now and then, when some one came to him for help, which was generally
money, he used Christine's parlor, if she happened to be out. So now,
finding the door ajar, and the room dark, he went in and turned on the
light.

"Come in here; we can talk better."

She did not sit down at first; but, observing that her standing kept him
on his feet, she sat finally. Evidently she found it hard to speak.

"You were to come," K. encouraged her, "to see if we couldn't plan
something for you. Now, I think I've got it."

"If it's another hospital--and I don't want to stay here, in the city."

"You like surgical work, don't you?"

"I don't care for anything else."

"Before we settle this, I'd better tell you what I'm thinking of.
You know, of course, that I closed my hospital. I--a series of things
happened, and I decided I was in the wrong business. That wouldn't be
important, except for what it leads to. They are trying to persuade me
to go back, and--I'm trying to persuade myself that I'm fit to go back.
You see,"--his tone was determinedly cheerful, "my faith in myself has
been pretty nearly gone. When one loses that, there isn't much left."

"You had been very successful." She did not look up.

"Well, I had and I hadn't. I'm not going to worry you about that. My
offer is this: We'll just try to forget about--about Schwitter's and all
the rest, and if I go back I'll take you on in the operating-room."

"You sent me away once!"

"Well, I can ask you to come back, can't I?" He smiled at her
encouragingly.

"Are