replied with some severity. "I should like him to
see that child now, if for nothing more than to have the satisfaction
of seeing how much even these few hours in the woods have
accomplished, and what a mistake he made when he said the child's
lungs needed looking after. Sperry is a surgeon, not a physician--and
he only makes himself ridiculous when he tries to be."

"I am quite of your opinion, Sam," Alice declared, not daring to
contradict her husband--a feeling of infinite rest creeping through
her veins as she spoke.

"He will then see for himself, I believe, that he was mistaken,"
continued Thayor in the same positive tone. "Margaret delicate!
Nonsense, my dear! By George--his diagnosis was not only brutal, it
was ridiculous. Why, Leveridge--"

"Be tolerant, Sam," returned Alice. "You know you always tell others
to be tolerant. Dr. Sperry evidently said what he believed to be the
truth. If he has been wrong I am sure he will be the first one to
acknowledge it, as any gentleman who has been mistaken would."

"Then he shall have the chance," replied Thayor. "You may invite him
at once, Alice, if you wish, but for one week only. Too much of Sperry
gets on my nerves."

* * * * *

When Alice reached her bedroom she locked the door and threw herself
on the bed in an ecstasy of tears. After some moments she arose with
an exultant look in her eyes, went over to her desk, unlocked a jewel
case and extracted from between the lining of a hidden compartment a
small photograph of Sperry at thirty, taken at Heidelberg.

Below the torrent of Big Shanty laughed in the sunlight.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

For Thayor to welcome Sperry with a warm grasp of the hand and an
outburst of--"Oh! I'm glad you are here; it seems like a special
Providence," was so strange and unusual a performance that it is no
wonder Alice, moving toward the buckboard to add her own greeting to
her husband's, was lost in astonishment even when the cause of the
outburst became clear to her.

Her husband's mental attitude toward the doctor, if the truth be told,
was one of the things that had never ceased to trouble her. Polite as
he was to everybody, he had been so particularly polite to Sperry that
it always aroused her suspicions. She knew he had sent for him purely
to oblige her and to help her over the chasm which divided Big Shanty
from Newport, but what other reasons her husband had for inviting him
to share h