be kill or cure!"

He glanced at her.

"We have hardly reached that point yet," he answered.

She went away dissatisfied. He had answered every question, he had even
encouraged her to hope a little more than her interpretation of what
Vincent said had allowed her; but as she drove away she knew he had
failed her. For she had gone to him in order to have Vincent presented to
her as a hero, as a man who had looked upon the face of death without a
quiver. Instead, he had been presented to her as a patient, just one of
the long procession that passed through that office. The doctor had said
nothing to contradict the heroic picture, but he had said nothing to
contribute to it. And surely, if Farron had stood out in his calmness and
courage above all other men, the doctor would have mentioned it, couldn't
have helped doing so; he certainly would not have spent so much time in
telling her how she was to guard and encourage him. To the doctor he was
only a patient, a pitiful human being, a victim of mortality. Was that
what he was going to become in her eyes, too?

At four she drove down-town to his office. He came out with another man;
they stood a moment on the steps talking and smiling. Then he drew his
friend to the car window and introduced him to Adelaide. The man took
off his hat.

"I was just telling your husband, Mrs. Farron, that I've been looking at
offices in this building. By the spring he and I will be neighbors."

Adelaide just shut her eyes, and did not open them again until Vincent
had got in beside her and she felt his arm about her shoulder.

"My poor darling!" he said. "What you need is to go home and get some
sleep." It was said in his old, cherishing tone, and she, leaning back,
with her head against the point of his shoulder, felt that, black as it
was, life for the first time since the night before had assumed its
normal aspect again.

CHAPTER VIII

The morning after their drive up-town Vincent told his wife that all
his arrangements were made to go to the hospital that night, and to be
operated upon the next day. She reproached him for having made his
decision without consulting her, but she loved him for his proud
independence.

Somehow this second day under the shadow of death was less terrible than
the first. Vincent stayed up-town, and was very natural and very busy. He
saw a few people,--men who owed him money, his lawyer, his partner,--but
most of the time he and Adelaide sat