ithout
warning.

"I'm glad that it was I and not Sir Beverley who told her," I said to
myself. But I said it sadly. The sunshine was dimmed. I longed like a
child to escape from that house--escape quickly, and run to Jim's arms
as to a fortress.

* * * * *

Sir Beverley kept his promise, and sent for a man who had worked with
him in his experiments. Then he went back to Exeter, promising to return
if he were sent for, or in any case to look in once a fortnight.

There was no need, however, to send for him. Ralston Murray got on--as
the new man, Doctor Thomas, said--"like a house on fire."

At first there was little change to be noticed in his appearance. It was
only that the bad symptoms, the constant high temperature, the agonizing
pains in all the bones, and the deadly weakness, diminished and
presently ceased. Then, the next time Jim and I called, I cried out:
"Why, you are _fatter_!"

Murray laughed with a gay, almost boyish ring in his laugh.
"Transformation of the Living Skeleton into the Fat Man!" he cried.
"What a happy world this is, after all, and I'm the happiest man in it;
that is, I would be, if Rosemary weren't shrinking as rapidly as I
increase. What _are_ we to do with her? She says she's perfectly well.
But look at her little face."

We looked at it, and though she smiled as brightly as she could, the
smile was camouflage. Always pearly, her skin was dead white now. Even
the lips had lost their coral red, though she bit them to bring back the
blood, and a slight hollow had broken the exquisite oval of her cheeks.
Her eyes looked far too big; and even her hair had dulled, losing
something of its moonlight sheen.

"I'm perfectly all right!" she insisted. "It's only the reaction after
so much anxiety. _Anybody_ would feel it, in my place."

"Yes, of course," I soothed her. But I knew that there must be more than
that. She looked as if she never slept. My heart yearned over her, yet I
despaired of doing any good. She would not confide in me. All my
confidence in myself as a "Brightener" was gone.

CHAPTER X

THE CLIMAX

From that time on I was haunted by Rosemary's thin, beautiful face, the
suppressed anguish in her eyes, and the wretched conviction that I was
of no use--that I'd stumbled against a high, blank wall. Often at night
I dreamed of her in a feverish way, queer dreams that I couldn't
remember when I waked, though they left me depressed and an