e girl ever to think of impropriety. She was primitive and she had
rather a before-the-flood nature, but she had not the faintest vulgar
strain in her. Her mind was essentially pure; nothing material in her
had been awakened. Her greatest joy was to do the many things for the
patient which a nurse must do--prepare his food, give him drink, adjust
his pillows, bathe his face and hands, take his temperature; and on his
part he tried hard to disguise from her the apprehension he felt, and to
avoid any hint by word or look that he saw anything save the actions of
a kind heart. True, her views as to what was proper and improper might
possibly be on a different plane from his own. For instance, he had seen
girls of her station in the West kiss young men freely--men whom they
had no thought of marrying; and that was not the custom of his own class
in his home-country.

As he got well slowly, and life opened out before him again, he felt he
had to pursue a new course, and in that course he must take account of
Kitty Tynan, though he could not decide how. He had a deep confidence in
the Young Doctor, in his judgment and his character; and it was almost
inevitable that he should tell his life-story to the man whose skill had
saved him from death in a strange land, with all undone he wanted to do
ere he returned to a land which was not strange.

The thing happened, as such things do happen, in a quite natural way one
day when he and the Young Doctor were discussing the probable verdict
against the man who had shot him--the trial was to come on soon, and
once again Augustus Burlingame was to be counsel for the defence, and
once again Crozier would have to appear in a witness-box.

"I think you ought to know, Crozier, that, in view of the trial,
Burlingame has written to a firm of lawyers in Kerry to get full
information about your past," the Young Doctor said.

Crozier gave one of those little jerks of the head characteristic of
him and said: "Why, of course; I knew he would do that after I gave my
evidence in the Logan Trial." He raised himself on his elbow. "I owe
you a great deal," he added feelingly, "and I can't repay you in cash or
kindness for what you have done; but it is due you to tell you my whole
story, and that is what I propose to do now."

"If you think--"

"I do think; and also I want both Mrs. Tynan and her daughter to hear
my story. Better, truer friends a man could not have; and I want them to
know the wors