wing
concern for him.

For the man changed in that last year. It was not only that he looked
older--harassed, had grown so much more silent, but Deane as a physician
noticed that he was losing weight and there was a cough that often made
him look at him sharply. A number of times Ruth said, "I don't think
Stuart's well," but she looked so wretched in saying it that he always
laughed at her. The Williams' were not patients of his, so he felt that
professional hesitance, even though he thought it foolish
professionalism, in himself approaching Stuart about his health. Once
when he seemed particularly tired and nervous Deane did venture to
suggest a little lay-off from work, a change, but Stuart had answered
irritably that he couldn't stop work, and didn't want to go away,
anyhow.

It was almost a year after the day Ruth came to him steeled for telling
what had to be told that the man of whom she that day talked came to
tell him what he had been suspecting, that he had tuberculosis and would
have to take that lay-off Deane had been hinting at. It seemed it was
either go away or die, probably, he added, with an attempted laugh, it
was go away and die, but better go away, he thought, than stay there and
give his friends an exhibition in dying.

They talked along over the surface of it, as is people's way, Deane
speaking mildly of tuberculosis, how prevalent, how easily controlled,
how delightful Arizona was, the charms of living out-of-doors, and all
the time each of them knew that the other was not thinking of that at
all, but thinking of Ruth.

Finally, bracing himself as for a thing that was all he could do, Stuart
spoke of her. "Ruth said she was coming in to see you about something
this afternoon. I thought I'd get in first and tell you. I wondered what
you'd think--what we'd better do--"

His voice trailed off miserably. He turned a little away and sat there
in utter dejection.

And as he looked at him it came to Deane that love could be the most
ruthless, most terrible thing in the world. People talked to him
afterwards about this man's selfishness in taking his own pleasure, his
own happiness, at the cost of everyone else. He said little, for how
could he make real to anyone else his own feeling about what he had seen
of the man's suffering, utter misery, as he spoke of the girl to whom he
must bring new pain. Some one spoke to him afterwards of this "light
love" and he laughed in that person's face. He knew