u are right, if I am wrong," he
answered cautiously.

"Well, I'm going to be married," she said, with an air of finality.

He waved a hand deprecatingly. "Impossible--there's no man worth it. Who
is the undeserving wretch?"

"I'll tell you to-morrow," she replied. "He doesn't know yet how happy
he's going to be. What did you come here for? Why did you want to see
me?" she added. "You had something you were going to tell me. Hadn't
you?"

"That's quite right," he replied. "It's about Crozier. This is my last
visit to him professionally. He can go on now without my care. Yours
will be sufficient for him. It has been all along the very best care he
could have had. It did more for him than all the rest, it--"

"You don't mean that," she interrupted, with a flush and a bosom that
leaped under her pretty gown. "You don't mean that I was of more use
than the nurse--than the future Mrs. Jesse Bulrush?"

"I mean just that," he answered. "Nearly every sick person, every sick
man, I should say, has his mascot, his ministering angel, as it were.
It's a kind of obsession, and it often means life or death, whether the
mascot can stand the strain of the situation. I knew an old man--down by
Dingley's Flat it was, and he wanted a boy--his grand-nephew-beside him
always. He was getting well, but the boy took sick and the old man died
the next day. The boy had been his medicine. Sometimes it's a particular
nurse that does the trick; but whoever it is, it's a great vital fact.
Well, that's the part you played to Mr. Shiel Crozier of Lammis and
Castlegarry aforetime. He owes you much."

"I am glad of that," she said softly, her eyes on the distance.

"She is in love with him in spite of what she says," remarked the Young
Doctor to himself. "Well," he continued aloud, "the fact is, Crozier's
almost well in a way, but his mind is in a state, and he is not going to
get wholly right as things are. Since things came out in court, since he
told us his whole story, he has been different. It's as though--"

She interrupted him hastily and with suppressed emotion. "Yes, yes,
do you think I've not noticed that? He's been asleep in a way for five
years, and now he's awake again. He is not James Gathorne Kerry now;
he is James Shiel Gathorne Crozier, and--oh, you understand: he's back
again where he was before--before he left her."

The Young Doctor nodded approvingly. "What a little brazen wonder you
are! I declare you see more than--"