alth and good spirits.

Sheila stopped on her way up the steps, turned and looked back at him. The
wonder of his recovery often surprised even herself. It seemed incredible
that this pulsing, vitalized portion of humanity could have once been a
veritable husk, hounded by a haunting fear into a state of hopelessness
and loathing of existence. Life certainly tingled in Peter now, and every
time Sheila felt it, man or no man, she could not help rejoice with all
her heart at the thing she had helped to do.

Peter's smile met hers half-way in the dusk. "It may be another week
before I see you again. In case--I'd like to tell you that I'm staying on
indefinitely. The chief has pushed me out of my Sunday section and has
sent me a lot of special articles to do up here. He thinks I had better
not come back until I'm all fit."

"You're perfectly fit now." There was a brutal frankness in the girl's
words.

Peter had grown used to these moments. They no longer troubled or hurt
him. He had begun to understand. "Maybe I am; I feel so, but you can never
tell. Then there's always the danger of one's heart going back on one.
That's why I've decided to stay on and coddle mine. Rather good plan?"

Sheila O'Leary vouchsafed no answer. She disappeared through the entrance
of the sanitarium, leaving Peter Brooks still smiling. Neither his
expression nor position had changed a few seconds later when Miss Jacobs
touched him on the arm.

"Oh, Mr. Brooks! Were you the guilty party--running away with Leerie? For
the last two hours we've been combing the San grounds for her." The green
eyes of the flirtatious nurse gleamed peculiarly catlike in the dusk. "Of
course I don't suppose my opinion counts so very much with you," there was
a honeyed, self-deprecatory quality in the girl's tone, "but if I were
you, I wouldn't go about so awfully much with Leerie. She's a dear girl--I
don't suppose it's really her fault--but she had such a record. And you
know it's my creed that girls of that kind can compromise poor men far
oftener than men compromise girls. Oh, I do hope you understand what I
mean!"

Peter still wore a smile, but it was a different smile. It was as much
like the old one as a search-light is like sunshine. He focused it full on
Miss Jacobs's face. "I'm a shark at understanding. And don't worry about
me. I'm more of a shark in deep water with--with sirens." He chuckled
inwardly at the look of blank incomprehension on the nurse's face