r
had one like you--he wouldn't be where he is. But he can't have you,"
he repeated, and held her closer. "I couldn't see you reading to him and
walking with him, and being a friend to him,--I couldn't see it, that's
all, no matter how much good you might do him. Queer--I didn't know that
was in me--that feeling. Macauley calls me a Turk. I guess that's what I
am. It's a primitive sort of instinct, scoffed at in these days when half
the married women are playing with fire in the shape of other women's
husbands. But I hate that sort of thing--have always hated it. I'm a
Turk, all right. Do you mind?"

"No, I don't think I mind," she answered softly. "But I want your perfect
trust, Red."

"You have it, oh, you have it, love. No possible question of that. And
I don't mean that I'm not willing to have Leaver get what he can of
your dearness, as he's bound to feel it, in our home. But this comrade
business, which I feel he's so much in need of,--that's what he can't
have from you. And if he stayed on, and there was no other woman about,
why, quite naturally--"

He stopped. Then, as she was silent, "You won't misunderstand me, little
wife?" he begged. "I've seen so much of the other thing, you know. Can I
be--enough for you?"

"Quite enough, Red."

After a minute he went back to the thing which absorbed him. "I can see
you haven't much confidence in my plan for Amy's helping him?"

She hesitated. "You spoke just now of playing with fire. You don't
feel that in throwing two people so closely together you are risking
something?"

He considered it. "My idea is that Amy will administer her comradeship as
she would her medicines. She is the most conscientious girl alive; she
won't give him a drop too much."

"Not a drop too much for his good, perhaps. But what about hers, dear?
When he is himself Dr. Leaver can be a wonderfully interesting and
compelling man, you know. It would be a pity for her to grow to care for
him, if--I don't suppose it is at all possible to expect him to care
seriously for her,--do you?"

"Well, I shouldn't have said so a month ago. But I'm just beginning to
realize a new side to Amy Mathewson. I don't suppose I ever saw her--to
look at her--out of her uniform, before that night when you dressed her
up. By George, along with the clothes she seemed to put on a new skin!"

"Uniforms are disguising things," Ellen admitted, "and Amy is a lady,
born and bred, in her uniform and out of it. But it's n