at him, her face full of sympathy. "Oh, I'm so glad!" she
said.

"Are you? Thank you! I wanted somebody to be glad--and I hadn't anybody.
I had to tell you. It's too soon to be absolutely sure, but it promises
so well I'm daring to be happy. It's the sort of operation in which the
worst danger is practically over if the patient gets through the
operation itself. She's rallied beautifully. And whatever happens, I've
proved my point--that the experiment is feasible. Some of the men
doubted that--all thought it a big risk. But I had to take it, and
now--Ah, come on, Miss Charlotte! Let's fly!"

Away they went, faster and faster--long, swinging strokes in perfect
unison; two accomplished skaters with one object in view; working off
healthy young spirits at a tension. They did not talk; they saved their
breath; they went like the wind itself.

At the farthest extremity of the smooth ice, which ended at a little
frost-bound waterfall, they came to a stop. Churchill looked down at a
face like a rose, black eyes that were all alight, and lips that smiled
with the fresh happiness of the fine sport.

"I've skated at Copenhagen and at St. Petersburg," he said gaily, "to
say nothing of Fresh Pond and Lake Superior and other such home grounds.
But it's safe to say I never enjoyed a mile of them like that last one.
You--you were really glad, weren't you, that it went so well with me
to-day?"

"How could I help it, Doctor Churchill?" she answered, earnestly. Ever
since coming out she had been remembering the little revelation his
housekeeper had made of his life, and it had touched her deeply to know
why he had come to settle in the suburban town instead of in the much
more promising city field--a question which had occurred to her many
times since she had known him.

"I always expected," he went on, in a more quiet way, "to be able to
come home and tell my mother about my first triumphs. She would have
been so proud and happy over the smallest thing. Her father was a
distinguished surgeon--Marchmont of Baltimore. He died only four years
ago--his books are an authority on certain subjects. My other
grandfather was Dr. Andrew Churchill of Glasgow--an old-school physician
and a good one. So you see I come honestly by my love for it all. And
mother--how we used to talk it all over--"

He stopped abruptly, with a tightening of the lips, and stood staring
off over the frozen fields, his eyes growing sombre. Charlotte's own
eyes f