"Don't get an old head on those young shoulders yet, Nellie," he
said as he was going. "Leave the worrying to me. I'm used to it."

She saw then that to him she was still a little girl. She probably
would always be just a little girl to him. He did not take her
seriously, and no one else would speak to him. She was quite
despairing.

The ward loved Doctor Willie since the night before. It watched him
out with affectionate eyes. Jane Brown watched him, too, his fine
old head, the sturdy step that had brought healing and peace to a
whole county. She had hurt him, she knew that. She ached at the
thought of it. And she had done no good.

That afternoon Jane Brown broke another rule. She went to Twenty-two
on her off duty, and caused a mild furore there. He had been drawing
a sketch of her from memory, an extremely poor sketch, with one eye
larger than the other. He hid it immediately, although she could not
possibly have recognised it, and talked very fast to cover his
excitement.

"Well, well!" he said. "I knew I was going to have some luck to-day.
My right hand has been itching--or is that a sign of money?" Then he
saw her face, and reduced his speech to normality, if not his heart.

"Come and sit down," he said. "And tell me about it."

But she would not sit down. She went to the window and looked out
for a moment. It was from there she said:

"I have been accepted."

"Good." But he did not, apparently, think it such good news. He drew
a long breath. "Well, I suppose your friends should be glad for
you."

"I didn't come to talk about being accepted," she announced.

"I don't suppose, by any chance, you came to see how I am getting
along?" he inquired humbly.

"I can see that."

"You can't see how lonely I am." When she offered nothing to this
speech, he enlarged on it. "When it gets unbearable," he said, "I
sit in front of the mirror and keep myself company. If that doesn't
make your heart ache, nothing will."

"I'm afraid I have a heart-ache, but it is not that." For a
terrible moment he thought of that theory of his which referred to a
disappointment in love. Was she going to have the unbelievable
cruelty to tell him about it?

"I have to talk to somebody," she said simply. "And I came to you,
because you've worked on a newspaper, and you have had a lot of
experience. It's--a matter of ethics. But really it's a matter of
life and death."

He felt most horribly humble before her, and he hated the