my fault."

"I think we hit it off as well as most of them."

"I suppose so. Is there anything that you very much want which I fail to
give you, Jerry?"

"I don't think of anything, Jane."

She knew the minute she had put the question, how futile it was. She had
impulsively sought an answer on one plane, and he was speaking from
another.

"I may die, Jerry. I would like to think I had made you comfortable."

"Jane, of course you're not going to die, and you've made me more than
comfortable," he cried, with feeling.

The next day they left the house, in a burst of autumn warmth and glory.
The asters and the fall leaves were flaunting their gay colours in the
garden, and the vines on the walls, freshened by late rains, fluttered
in the sun.

"Oh, Jerry, I wish it were spring!" cried Jane, in her one protest at
the crisis she was facing.

He caught it in her tone, and felt the first conscious sympathy with
her. He drew her hand through his arm, and led her to the gate to wait
for the cab.

"A month from to-day, Jane, maybe we'll be glad it is winter."

"Yes, yes, of course, we must be," she said, getting herself in hand.

He looked at her tenderly, and Jane knew that, if she let go her control
and sobbed out her terror to him, he would be her slave--her master. She
made her choice then. She knew that she yearned for something to sustain
her, which she had not. She even dreamed of what the loyal devotion of a
man like Martin might mean to her in such a moment, but never once did
she blame Jerry that he did not fill her needs.

"Maybe they aren't my needs; maybe they're the needs of my whole sex.
How could he supply that order?" she mused, smilingly, as they rode off
in the cab.

CHAPTER XXI

Jane endured three nervous days at the hospital before she was ill.
Jerry was in and out all day, and Bobs and Jinny Chatfield spent much of
the time with her. She was grateful to them, but secretly she wished
they would not fuss over her. She had wanted to crawl away into this
quiet place, to get this ordeal over by herself.

She was interested in the hospital regime, which was entirely new to
her. She liked the smooth efficiency of it. Quiet nurses coming and
going, doctors padding silently up and down the halls. She had an
agreeable nurse, who answered her questions intelligently. She developed
an interest in the cases about her.

Her room looked off over the Hudson, and she spent hours watching the
boa