an odd feeling of
responsibility over him, a responsibility that I can't see just how to
carry out." Suddenly she paused. "Reed," she said; "you're not as well,
to-day. What is the trouble? Are you overdoing; or has Ramsdell let you
strain yourself?"

He forced a smile back to his lips, although his eyes were haggard.

"It's nothing, Olive, really." He spoke as lightly as he could. "Your
imaginings concerning Brenton have lapped over on to me; that's all."

She felt the rebuke in his words, knew within herself how undeserved it
was, and, rather than confess the truth, arose in her own defence.

"Not imaginings, Reed," she said, and her self-protective dignity yet
hurt him. "Now and then we women do have intuitions that are
trustworthy. This, I think, is one of them. And Mr. Brenton needs all
the help he can get, out of any sort of source."

Reed shut his teeth upon his hurt, until he could command his voice
once more. Then,--

"I agree with you there, Olive," he assented. "Moreover, I wrote to
Whittenden about him, a week ago. If any one can be of use, it will be
Whittenden; he always knows what tonic it is best to prescribe. Must
you go?" He looked up at her appealingly. Then the same appeal came
into his voice, set it to throbbing with an accent wholly new to
Olive's ears. "Olive," he said; "you're not going to misunderstand me,
not going to allow Brenton to come in between us?"

Suddenly the girl went white; suddenly she bent down to rest her hand
on his, in one of the few, few touches she had ever given his fingers
since the day he had been brought home and laid there in his room,
powerless to withdraw himself from too insistent human contacts. Her
voice, when she spoke, had a throb that matched his own.

"Never, Reed!" she said.

A moment later, she was gone, leaving Opdyke there alone, to wonder
and, wondering, to worry.

Two afternoons later, Duncan, the new assistant, brought up a message
from the laboratory. Brenton would be at leisure, soon after four.
Might he come up? That was just after luncheon. Therefore two hours
would intervene, two hours for a quiet going over of certain things
that Reed Opdyke felt it was for him alone to say, certain measures for
Olive's safety which he alone should take. Indeed, there was no other
man who stood, to Olive's mind, so nearly in a brother's place; no
other man, it seemed to Opdyke, who owned one half so good a right to
test the ground on which she stood, to