mpanion, and Edwin, while more difficult to handle, was
picking up flesh and color, and was learning to run the car.

Cass's fever dragged on, going down one day only to rise higher the next.
Seven weeks, eight weeks, nine weeks passed, and still no improvement.

Quin, trying to keep up his work at the factory on two or three hours'
sleep out of the twenty-four, grew thin and haggard, and coughed more
than at any time since he had left the hospital. During the long night
vigils he made sporadic efforts to keep up his university work, but he
made little headway.

"Go on to bed, Quin," Rose whispered one night, when she found him asleep
with his head against the bed-post. "You'll be giving out next, and God
knows what I'll do then."

"Not me!" he declared, suppressing a yawn. "You're the one that's done
in. Why don't you stay down?"

"I can't," she murmured, kneeling anxiously beside the unconscious
patient. "He looks worse to me to-night. Do you believe we can pull him
through?"

She had on a faded pink kimono over her thin night-gown, and her heavy
hair was plaited down her back. There were no chestnut puffs over her
ears or pink spots on her cheeks, and her lips looked strange without
their penciled cupid's bow. But to Quin there was something in her drawn
white face and anxious, tender eyes that was more appealing. In their
long siege together he had found a staunch dependence and a power of
sacrifice in the girl that touched him deeply.

"I don't know, Rose," he admitted, reaching over and smoothing her hair;
"but we'll do our darnedest."

At the touch of his hand she reached up and impulsively drew it down to
her cheek, holding it there with her trembling lips against its hard
palm.

The night was intensely hot and still. That afternoon they had moved Cass
into Rose's room in the hope of getting more air from the western
exposure; but only the hot smell of the asphalt and the stifling odor of
car smoke came through the curtainless window. The gas-jet, turned very
low, threw distorted shadows on the bureau with its medley of toilet
articles and medicine bottles. Through the open door of the closet could
be seen Rose's personal belongings; under the table were a pair of
high-heeled slippers; and two white stockings made white streaks across
the window-sill.

Quin sat by Cass's bedside, with his hand clasped to Rose's cheek, and
fought a battle that had been raging within him for days. Without being
in the