to his illness, Spurlock's mind had been tortured by an
appalling worry, so that now, in the process of convalescence, it
might be compared to a pool which had been violently stirred: there
were indications of subsidence, but there were still strange forms
swirling on the surface--whims and fancies which in normal times
would never have risen above sub-consciousness.

Little by little the pool cleared, the whims vanished: so that both
Ruth and the doctor, by the middle of the third week, began to
accept Spurlock's actions as normal, whereas there was still a mote
or two which declined to settle, still a kink in the gray matter
that refused to straighten out.

Spurlock began to watch for Ruth's coming in the morning; first,
with negligent interest, then with positive eagerness. His literary
instincts were reviving. Ruth was something to study for future
copy; she was almost unbelievable. She was not a reversion to type,
which intimates the primordial; she suggested rather the
incarnation of some goddess of the South Seas. He was not able to
recognize, as the doctor did, that she was only a natural woman.

His attitude toward her was purely intellectual, free of any
sentimentality, utterly selfish. Ruth was not a woman; she was a
phenomenon. So, adroitly and patiently, he pulled Ruth apart; that
is, he plucked forth a little secret here, another there, until he
had quite a substantial array. What he did not know was this: Ruth
surrendered these little secrets because the doctor had warned her
that the patient must be amused and interested.

From time to time, however, he was baffled. The real tragedy--which
he sensed and toward which he was always reaching--eluded all his
verbal skill. It was not a cambric curtain Ruth had drawn across
that part of her life: it was of iron. Ruth could tell the doctor;
she could bare many of her innermost thoughts to that kindly man;
but there was an inexplicable reserve before this young man whom
she still endued with the melancholy charm of Sydney Carton. It was
not due to shyness: it was the inherent instinct of the Woman, a
protective fear that she must retain some elements of mystery in
order to hold the interest of the male.

When she told him that the natives called her The Dawn Pearl, his
delight was unbounded. He addressed her by that title, and
something in the tone disturbed her. A sophisticated woman would
have translated the tone as a caress. And yet to Spurlock it was