y cloth stretching from the foot of the lawn across to
the crags beyond, while the sun wrapped the little bungalow in a warm,
white mantle.

Mary had never tired of this enchanted world during the days of her
convalescence. The Doctor, with firm will, had lifted every care from
her mind. She had gratefully submitted to his orders, and asked no
questions.

She began to wonder vaguely about his life and people and why he had
left the world in which a man of his culture and power must have moved,
to bury himself in these mountain wilds. She wondered if he had married,
separated from his wife and chosen the life of a recluse. He volunteered
no information about himself.

When not attending his patients he spent his hours in the greenhouse
among his flowers or in the long library extension of the bungalow.
More than five thousand volumes filled the solid shelves. A massive oak
table, ten feet in length and four feet wide, stood in the center of the
room, always generously piled with books, magazines and papers. At the
end of this table he kept the row of books which bore immediately on the
theme he was studying.

Beside the window opening on the view of the valley stood his
old-fashioned desk--six feet long, its top a labyrinth of pigeon-holes
and tiny drawers.

He pursued his studies with boyish enthusiasm and chattered of them to
Mary by the hour--with never a word passing his lips about himself.

Aunt Abbie, the cook, brought her a cup of tea, and Mary volunteered a
question.

"Do you know the Doctor's people, Auntie?" she asked hesitatingly.

"Lord, child, he's a mystery to everybody! All we know is that he's
the best man that ever walked the earth. He won't talk and the mountain
folks are too polite to nose into his business. He saved my boy's life
one summer, and when he was strong and well and went back to Asheville
to his work, I had nothin' to do but to hold my hands, and I come here
to cook for him. He tries to pay me wages but I laugh at him. I told him
if he could save my boy's life for nothin' I reckon I could cook him a
few good meals without pay----"

Her eyes filled with tears. She brushed them off, laughed and added:

"He lets me alone now and don't pester me no more about money."

Her tea and toast finished, Mary placed the tray on the table, rose with
a sudden look of pain, and made her way slowly to the library.

A warm fire of hardwood logs sparkled in the big stone fireplace. The
Doctor w