her! But then, how poor most women--and men, too--would look in
a strong and just light. Few indeed could stand idealizing; except
Victor, no one she knew. And he was human enough not to make her
uncomfortable in his presence.

But it so happened that before she could see Victor Dorn her father
disobeyed Dr. Charlton and gave way to the appetite that was the chief
cause of his physical woes. He felt so well that he ate the family
dinner, including a peach cobbler with whipped cream, which even the
robust Jane adventured warily. Martha was dining with them. She
abetted her father. "It's light," said she. "It couldn't harm
anybody."

"You mustn't touch it, popsy," said Jane.

She unthinkingly spoke a little too commandingly. Her father, in a
perverse and reckless mood, took Martha's advice. An hour later Dr.
Charlton was summoned, and had he not arrived promptly----

"Another fifteen or twenty minutes," said he to the old man when he had
him out of immediate danger, "and I'd have had nothing to do but sign a
certificate of natural death."

"Murder would have been nearer the truth," said Martin feebly. "That
there fool Martha!"

"Come out from behind that petticoat!" cried Charlton. "Didn't I spend
the best part of three days in giving you the correct ideas as to
health and disease--in showing you that ALL disease comes from
indigestion--ALL disease, from falling hair and sore eyes to weak
ankles and corns? And didn't I convince you that you could eat only
the things I told you about?"

"Don't hit a man when he's down," groaned Hastings.

"If I don't, you'll do the same idiotic trick again when I get you
up--if I get you up."

Hastings looked quickly at him. This was the first time Charlton had
ever expressed a doubt about his living. "Do you mean that?" he said
hoarsely. "Or are you just trying to scare me?"

"Both," said Charlton. "I'll do my best, but I can't promise. I've
lost confidence in you. No wonder doctors, after they've been in
practice a few years, stop talking food and digestion to their
patients. I've never been able to convince a single human being that
appetite is not the sign of health, and yielding to it the way to
health. But I've made lots of people angry and have lost their trade.
I had hopes of you. You were such a hopeless wreck. But no. And you
call yourself an intelligent man!"

"I'll never do it again," said Hastings, pleading, but smiling,
too--Charlton's way