he
door. On the threshold he turned and faced them all.

"Uncle Phil--Aunt Margery, help Ruth. I can't." And the door
closed upon him.

Philip and Margery did their best to obey his parting injunction but it
was not an easy task. Ruth was possessed by a very panic of dread of
Geoffrey Annersley and an even more difficult to deal with flood of love
for Larry Holiday.

"I don't want anybody but Larry," she wailed over and over. "It is Larry
I love. I don't love Geoffrey Annersley. I won't let him be my husband. I
don't want anybody but Larry."

In vain they tried to comfort her, entreat her to wait until to-morrow
before she gave up. Perhaps Geoffrey Annersley wasn't her husband.
Perhaps everything was quite all right. She must try to have patience and
not let herself get sick worrying in advance.

"He _is_ my husband," she suddenly announced with startling conviction.
"I remember his putting the ring on my finger. I remember his saying
'You've got to wear it. It is the only thing to do. You must.' I remember
what he looks like--almost. He is tall and he has a scar on his cheek
--here." She patted her own face feverishly to show the spot. "He made me
wear the ring and I didn't want to. I didn't want to. Oh, don't let me
remember. Don't let me," she implored.

At this point the doctor took things in his own hands. The child was
obviously beginning to remember. The shock of the man's coming had
snapped something in her brain. They must not let things come back
too disastrously fast. He packed her off to bed with a stiff dose of
nerve quieting medicine. Margery sat with her arms tight around the
forlorn little sufferer and presently the dreary sobbing ceased and
the girl drifted off to exhausted sleep, nature's kindest panacea for
all human ills.

Meanwhile the doctor sought out Larry. He found him in the office
apparently completely absorbed in the perusal of a medical magazine. He
looked up quickly as the older man entered and answered the question in
his eyes giving assurance that Ruth was quite all right, would soon be
asleep if she was not already. He made no mention of that disconcerting
flash of memory. Sufficient unto the day was the trouble thereof.

He came over and laid a kindly, encouraging hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Keep up heart a little longer," he said. "By tomorrow you will
know where you stand and that will be something, no matter which
way it turns."

"I should say it would," groaned Larry.