o me?" R.P. Burns, M.D., sat comfortably back
in a large willow chair, by the bedside, and crossed one leg over the
other in a fashion indicative of an intention to settle down to it and
have it out. "Just let me state the case to you, and try to look at it
from the outside. Of course that's a difficult thing to do, when it
happens to be your own case, but you have a judicial mind, and you can
do the trick, if anybody can."

Leaver was silent. He lay staring out of the open window beside which his
bed had been drawn, his thin cheek showing gaunt hollows, his eyes heavy
with unrest. All the scents and sounds of June were pouring in at the
three windows of the room; a tangle of rose vines looked in at him from
this nearest one. Just before Amy Mathewson had left him, a few minutes
ago, for her afternoon rest, she had brought him one wonderful bloom,
the queen, it seemed, of all the roses of that June. It lay upon the
window-sill, now, within reach of his hand.

Burns began to speak. His tone was matter-of-fact, yet it held
inflections of tenderness. His friend's case appealed to him powerfully;
his sympathy with Leaver's state of mind, as he was confident he
understood it, was intense. "If it were I!" he had said to himself--and
to Ellen--and had groaned in spirit at the thought. If it had been his
own case, it seemed to him he could not have endured it.

"You were at that sanitorium," Burns began. "Sanitoriums are useful
institutions, some of them get splendid results. But they have their
disadvantages. It's pretty difficult to eliminate the atmosphere of
illness. And, for a man whose training and instincts lead him to see
behind every face he meets in such a place, it's not an ideal spot at
all. What you need is a home, and that's what we're offering you, for as
long as you need it."

"And I appreciate it more than any words can express," Leaver said
gratefully. He turned his head now, and looked at his host. "Just to know
that I have such friends does me good. And I know that you mean all you
say. If I were a subject for a cure I might almost be tempted to take you
at your word."

"You are a subject for a cure."

Leaver shook his head, turning it away again. "Only to a certain point,"
he said, quietly. "Of course I know that rest and quiet will put my heart
right, because there's no organic lesion. Probably I shall build up and
get the better of my depression of mind--to a certain extent. But,
there's one thing