escription of Hennessy and the swans, but after Hennessy had gone she
watched him with all the intuitive sympathy of her womanhood and the
understanding of her profession. Not one of the emotions that swept
Peter's face but registered full on the girl's sensibilities: the
illuminating interest in something, bewilderment, hopelessness, despair,
agony, and a final weary surrender to the inevitable--they were all there.
But it was the strange, haunting look in the deep-set eyes that made the
girl sit up, alert and curious.

"'Phobia," she said, softly, under her breath. "Not over-fed liver or
alcoholic heart, but 'phobia, I'll wager, poor childman! Wonder how the
doctors have diagnosed him!"

She learned how a few days later when Miss Maxwell, the superintendent of
nurses, stopped her in the second-floor corridor. "My dear, I should like
to change you from Madam Courot to another case for a few days. Miss
Jacobs is on now and--"

"Coppy?" Sheila O'Leary broke in abruptly, a smile of amusement breaking
the demureness of her lips. "Needn't explain, Miss Max. I see. Young male
patient, unattached. Frequent pulse-takings and cerebral massage, with
late evening strolls in the pine woods. Business office takes notice and a
change of nurse recommended. Poor Coppy--ripping nurse! If only she
wouldn't grow flabby every time a pair of masculine eyes are focused her
way!"

"But it wasn't the business office this time." Miss Maxwell herself smiled
as she made the statement. "It was the patient himself. He asked for a
change."

"A man that's a man for all he's a patient. God bless his soul!" and a
look of sudden radiant delight swept the girl's face. "What's he here
for? Jilting chorus-girl--fatty degeneration of his check-book?"

The superintendent shook her head. "He doesn't happen to be that kind.
He's a newspaper-man--a personal friend of Doctor Dempsy's. Overwork, he
thinks, and for a year he's been trying to put him back on his feet. It's
a case of nerves, with nothing discoverable back of it so far as he can
see, but he wants us to try. Doctor Nichols has analyzed him; teeth have
been X-rayed; eyes, nose, and throat gone over. There's nothing radically
wrong with stomach or kidneys; heart shows nervous affection, nothing
more. He ought to be fit physically and he isn't. Miss Jacobs reports a
maximum of an hour's sleep in twenty-four. Doctor Dempsy writes it's a
case for a nurse, not a doctor, and the most tactful, intuitiv