You're trying to get rid of me, for some reason. Don't tell me you're
going to get married!"

But David did not smile. Lucy, watching him from her post by the window,
saw his face and felt a spasm of fear. At the most, she had feared
a mental conflict in David. Now she saw that it might be something
infinitely worse, something impending and immediate. She could hardly
reply when Dick appealed to her.

"Are you going to let him get rid of me like this, Aunt Lucy?" he
demanded. "Sentenced to Johns Hopkins, like Napoleon to St. Helena! Are
you with me, or forninst me?"

"I don't know, Dick," she said, with her eyes on David. "If it's for
your good--"

She went out after a time, leaving them at it hammer and tongs. David
was vanquished in the end, but Dick, going down to the office later
on, was puzzled. Somehow it was borne in on him that behind David's
insistence was a reason, unspoken but urgent, and the only reason that
occurred to him as possible was that David did not, after all, want him
to marry Elizabeth Wheeler. He put the matter to the test that night,
wandering in in dressing-gown and slippers, as was his custom before
going to bed, for a brief chat. The nurse was downstairs, and Dick moved
about the room restlessly. Then he stopped and stood by the bed, looking
down.

"A few nights ago, David, I asked you if you thought it would be right
for me to marry; if my situation justified it, and if to your knowledge
there was any other reason why I could not or should not. You said there
was not."

"There is no reason, of course. If she'll have you."

"I don't know that. I know that whether she will or not is a pretty
vital matter to me, David."

David nodded, silently.

"But now you want me to go away. To leave her. You're rather urgent
about it. And I feel-well I begin to think you have a reason for it."

David clenched his hands under the bed-clothing, but he returned Dick's
gaze steadily.

"She's a good girl," he said. "But she's entitled to more than you can
give her, the way things are."

"That is presupposing that she cares for me. I haven't an idea that
she does. That she may, in time--Then, that's the reason for this Johns
Hopkins thing, is it?"

"That's the reason," David said stoutly. "She would wait for you. She's
that sort. I've known her all her life. She's as steady as a rock. But
she's been brought up to have a lot of things. Walter Wheeler is well
off. You do as I want you to; pack yo