bed until he came again, and as quiet as
possible, he took his departure, and Silvia went with him.

"Tell me what is the matter?" she said, with her usual directness, when
they were out on the street.

"What makes you think anything is?" he parried.

"I beg your pardon," she said, a trifle coldly. "I should not have
asked."

He turned to her and stopped, mute reproach in his eyes. "There isn't a
shadow of doubt that tuberculosis has developed in that knee, and while
I hope to arrest it, and perfect a cure in time, I am very anxious,
nevertheless."

"But the break has united?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, and that goes to show that this condition is very recent, and
mild, but with her antecedent history no one can tell what may happen,"
he said.

"Antecedent history?" Silvia said, rather puzzled. "I thought you did
not know the family?"

"I didn't," he answered, "but you may remember that I looked very
carefully at the bruises about the knee when I set the leg, and I asked
Mrs. Bell some general questions but received no very definite replies
until to-day, and what you heard indicates that the child has already
had a slight attack of tuberculosis. I had counted on my treatment to
overcome the weakening influences of confinement to bed and crutch for
so long a time."

Silvia was silent, as if thinking out some plan, and said suddenly,
"Then it will all resolve itself into a contest between health and
disease, with a considerable handicap against the patient?"

"Yes," he said. "With plenty of good food and good air and the right
kind of care, there is no reason why she should not win. And I intend
that she shall," he concluded energetically.

CHAPTER XIII

AN ANTI-SUFFRAGE MEETING

Dr. Earl redoubled his attentions to Leonora, determined to give her no
just cause for complaint. The doubts that had beset him disappeared, for
no one could be more charming than Leonora, when she was permitted to
follow her own bent. Her mother also showed her gratification at his
devotion, and tried, with consummate tact, to wean him away from his
evident partiality for the suffrage cause. She gave him the best of the
tracts issued by the Anti-Suffrage Society; while he was waiting for his
offices to be fitted up, she took him to lectures and teas and
receptions where anti-suffrage sentiment abounded, and tried in various
ways to convince him of the superior social status of the "Anti" women.

The culmination was reached