and with speculation, too. She was a
small and fragile vessel on which to embark all the hopes that, out of
his own celibate and unfulfilled life, he had dreamed for Dick. She was
even more than that. If Lucy was right, from now on she was a part
of that experiment in a human soul which he had begun with only a
professional interest, but which had ended by becoming a vital part of
his own life.

She was a little shy with him, he saw; rather fluttered and nervous, yet
radiantly happy. The combination of these mixed emotions, plus her best
sick-room manner, made her slightly prim at first. But soon she was
telling him the small news of the village, although David rather
suspected her of listening for Dick's car all the while. When she got up
to go and held out her hand he kept it, between both of his.

"I haven't been studying symptoms for all these years for nothing, my
dear," he said. "And it seems to me somebody is very happy."

"I am, Doctor David."

He patted her hand.

"Mind you," he said, "I don't know anything and I'm not asking any
questions. But if the Board of Trade, or the Chief of Police, had come
to me and said, 'Who is the best wife for--well, for a young man who
is an important part of this community?' I'd have said in reply,
'Gentlemen, there is a Miss Elizabeth Wheeler who--'"

Suddenly she bent down and kissed him.

"Oh, do you think so?" she asked, breathlessly. "I love him so much,
Doctor David. And I feel so unworthy."

"So you are," he said. "So's he. So are all of us, when it comes to a
great love, child. That is, we are never quite what the other fellow
thinks we are. It's when we don't allow for what the scientist folk call
a margin of error that we come our croppers. I wonder"--he watched her
closely--"if you young people ever allow for a margin of error?"

"I only know this," she said steadily. "I can't imagine ever caring any
less. I've never thought about myself very much, but I do know that. You
see, I think I've cared for a long time."

When she had gone he sat in his chair staring ahead of him and thinking.
Yes. She would stick. She had loyalty, loyalty and patience and a rare
humility. It was up to Dick then. And again he faced the possibility of
an opening door into the past, of crowding memories, of confusion and
despair and even actual danger. And out of that, what?

Habit. That was all he had to depend on. The brain was a thing of
habits, like the body; right could be a h