e was
left a magnificent piece of property like Tralee; and he had all the
sources of pleasure open to a young man walking the primrose path. He
was living right up to the last. Both his wives were gray-headed when
they died--it turned them gray to live with him; both had died before
they were fifty; and here he was the sole owner of a wonderful young
head, with hair that reached to the waist, with lips like cool
fruit from an orchard-tree, and the indescribable charm of youth and
loveliness which the young themselves never really understood. That was
what he used to say to himself; it was only age could appreciate youth
and beauty; youth did not understand.

Thus the Young Doctor's question roused in him something at once savage
and apprehensive. Of course he wanted Louise to live. Why should she not
live?

"Doesn't any husband want his wife to live!" he answered sullenly. "But
I want to know what ails her. What medicine you going to give her?"

"I don't know," the Young Doctor replied meditatively. "When she is
quite rid of this attack, I'll examine her again and let you know."

Suddenly there shot into the greenish old eyes a reddish look of rage;
jealousy, horrible, gruesome jealousy, took possession of Joel Mazarine.
This young man to come in and go out of his wife's bedroom, to--Why
weren't there women doctors? He would get one over from the Coast, or
from Winnipeg, or else there was old Doctor Gensing, in Askatoon--who
was seventy-five at least. He would call him in and get rid of this
offensive young pill-maker.

"I don't believe there's anything the matter with her," he declared
stubbornly. "She's been healthy as a woman can be, living this life
here. What's her disease? I've asked you. What is it?"

The other laid a hand on himself, and in the colourless voice of the
expert, said: "Old age--that's her trouble, so far as I can see."

He paused, foreseeing the ferocious look which swept into the repulsive
face, and the clenching of the big hands. Then in a soothing, reflective
kind of voice he added:

"Senile decay--you know all about that. Well, now, it happens
sometimes--not often, but it does happen--that a very young person for
some cause or another suffers from senile decay. Some terrible leakage
of youth occurs. It has been cured, though, and I've cured one or two
cases myself."

He was almost prevaricating--but in a good cause. "Mrs. Mazarine's is
a case which can be cured, I think," he continu