nsate for
the fact that it might be a parting for a long time to come. However
much or little the exchange of notes during these last weeks might have
come to mean to Jordan King, aside from the diversion they had offered
to one sorely oppressed of mind and body, he resented being now forced
to those restrained phrases of farewell which he well knew were the only
ones that would commend him to his mother's approval.

Mrs. Burns and Miss Linton rose to go, summoned by Red Pepper himself,
who was to take them. In the momentary surge of greeting and small talk
which ensued, King surreptitiously beckoned Anne near. He looked up with
the direct gaze of the man who intends to make the most of the little
that Fate sends him.

"Letters are interesting things, aren't they?" he asked.

"Very. And when they are written by a man lying on his back, who doesn't
know when he is down, they are stimulating things," she answered; and
there was that in the low tone of her voice and the look of her eyes
which was as if she had pinned a medal for gallantry on the breast of
the black silk robe.

Mrs. Alexander King looked at her son--and moved nearer. She addressed
Anne. "I am more than glad to see, Miss Linton," said she, "that you are
fully recovered. Please let me wish you much success in your work. I
suppose we shall not see you again after you leave Mrs. Burns."

"No, Mrs. King," responded Anne's voice composedly. "Thank you for that
very kind wish."

She turned to the prostrate one once more. She put her hand in his, and
he held it fast for an instant, and, in spite of his mother's gaze, it
was an appreciable instant longer than formality called for.

"I shall hope to see you again," he said distinctly, and the usual
phrase acquired a meaning it does not always possess.

Then they were gone, and he had only the remembrance of Anne's parting
look, veiled and maidenly, but the comprehending look of a real friend
none the less.

"My dear boy, you must be quite worn out with all this company in this
exhausting weather," murmured Mrs. King, laying a cool hand on a
decidedly hot brow.

The brow moved beneath her hand, on account of a contraction of the
smooth forehead, as if with pain. "I really hadn't noticed the weather,
mother," replied her son's voice with some constraint in it.

"You must rest now, dear. People who are perfectly well themselves are
often most inconsiderate of an invalid, quite without intention, of
course.