ue sky in a kind
of ecstasy. Life seemed very wonderful to him just then; he had found
its supreme happiness, which was love. He was really getting quite mad
about Henriette, he told himself. He could hardly believe that the day
was coming when he would be able to clasp her in his arms.

But in the blue sky of George's happiness there was one little cloud of
storm. As often happens with storm-clouds, it was so small that at first
he paid no attention to it at all.

He noted upon his body one day a tiny ulcer. At first he treated it with
salve purchased from an apothecary. Then after a week or two, when this
had no effect, he began to feel uncomfortable. He remembered suddenly he
had heard about the symptoms of an unmentionable, dreadful disease, and
a vague terror took possession of him.

For days he tried to put it to one side. The idea was nonsense, it was
absurd in connection with a woman so respectable! But the thought would
not be put away, and finally he went to a school friend, who was a man
of the world, and got him to talk on the subject. Of course, George had
to be careful, so that his friend should not suspect that he had any
special purpose in mind.

The friend was willing to talk. It was a vile disease, he said; but one
was foolish to bother about it, because it was so rare. There were other
diseases which fellows got, which nearly every fellow had, and to which
none of them paid any attention. But one seldom met anyone who had the
red plague that George dreaded.

"And yet," he added, "according to the books, it isn't so uncommon.
I suppose the truth is that people hide it. A chap naturally wouldn't
tell, when he knew it would damn him for life."

George had a sick sensation inside of him. "Is it as bad as that?" he
asked.

"Of course," said the other, "Should you want to have anything to do
with a person who had it? Should you be willing to room with him or
travel with him? You wouldn't even want to shake hands with him!"

"No, I suppose not," said George, feebly.

"I remember," continued the other, "an old fellow who used to live out
in the country near me. He was not so very old, either, but he looked
it. He had to be pushed around in a wheel-chair. People said he had
locomotor ataxia, but that really meant syphilis. We boys used to poke
all kinds of fun at him because one windy day his hat and his wig were
blown off together, and we discovered that he was as bald as an egg.
We used to make jo