responsibility equally with himself--but would he do
that? Never! There was just one thing I could do,--let the patient think
I was still in charge, and continue to see him, while Van Horn ran things
and so satisfied the family."

"Oh, Red, they couldn't ask you to do that?"

"That was what they did ask. I saw 'red' then, for a minute, I can tell
you. You can't understand just what a humiliation that would be,--it's
more than you could expect of any man--"

"But with the patient needing you--"

"I know,--but it's an anomalous position, just the same--an unbearable
one. Not one man in a thousand would consider it for an instant. But it's
the one I've accepted--for you!"

He drew her into his arms, and had his reward. He had not known she would
be so deeply touched, and his heart grew very warm.

"Bless you!" he murmured. "Do you care so much about seeing those fires
banked? They would never burn _you_!"

"Care? Oh, how I care! But, Red, you haven't accepted an 'anomalous
position.' It's a clearly defined one,--the position of the man who is
big enough to take second place, because it is his duty. And I'm so proud
of you--so proud! And prouder yet because you've controlled that fiery
temper."

"Don't praise me yet,--it may break out again. The test is coming in the
next forty-eight hours."

"You will stand it,--I know you will."

"You would put backbone into a feather-bed," said Red Pepper, with
conviction, and they laughed and clung together, in the early dawn.

* * * * *

Two days later Burns came home again as the first light of the morning
was breaking over the summer sky. It had been the third consecutive night
which he had spent at the bedside of the patient who would not let him
go,--the patient who, every time his weary eyes lifted, during the long
stretches of the night, wanted to rest them upon a halo of coppery red
hair against the low-burning light. The sick man had learned what it
meant to feel now and then, in a moment of torture, the pressure of a
kind, big hand upon his, and to hear the sound of a quiet, reassuring
voice--_"Steady--steady--better in a minute!"_

As he entered his office his eyes were heavy with his vigils, but his
heart was very light. He looked at a certain old leather chair, into
which he had often sunk when he came in at untimely hours, too weary
to take another step toward bed. But now he passed it by and noiselessly
crossed the hall into