sisterly fashion.

He had just gone when a card was brought to her--"Dr. Robert
Stevens"--with "Sutherland, Indiana," penciled underneath.
Instantly she remembered, and had him brought to her--the man
who had rescued her from death at her birth. He proved to be
a quiet, elderly gentleman, subdued and aged beyond his
fifty-five years by the monotonous life of the drowsy old
town. He approached with a manner of embarrassed respect and
deference, stammering old-fashioned compliments. But Susan
was the simple, unaffected girl again, so natural that he soon
felt as much at ease as with one of his patients in Sutherland.

She took him away in her car to her apartment for supper with
her and Clelie, who was in the company, and Sperry. She kept
him hour after hour, questioning him about everyone and
everything in the old town, drawing him out, insisting upon
more and more details. The morning papers were brought and
they read the accounts of play and author and players. For
once there was not a dissent; all the critics agreed that it
was a great performance of a great play. And Susan made
Sperry read aloud the finest and the longest of the accounts
of Brent himself--his life, his death, his work, his lasting
fame now peculiarly assured because in Susan Lenox there had
been found a competent interpreter of his genius.

After the reading there fell silence. Susan, her pallid face
and her luminous, inquiring violet eyes inscrutable, sat
gazing into vacancy. At last Doctor Stevens moved uneasily
and rose to go. Susan roused herself, accompanied him to the
adjoining room. Said the old doctor.

"I've told you about everybody. But you've told me nothing
about the most interesting Sutherlander of all--yourself."

Susan looked at him. And he saw the wound hidden from all the
world--the wound she hid from herself as much of the time as
she could. He, the doctor, the professional confessor, had
seen such wounds often; in all the world there is hardly a
heart without one. He said:

"Since sorrow is the common lot, I wonder that men can be so
selfish or so unthinking as not to help each other in every
way to its consolations. Poor creatures that we
are--wandering in the dark, fighting desperately, not knowing
friend from foe!"

"But I am glad that you saved me," said she.

"You have the consolations--success--fame--honor."

"There is no consolation," replied she in her grave sweet way.
"I had the best. I--los