ut when the angels whisper to us that the best blessings
of earth and heaven are humility and faith and the sort of love that
does not seek its own, do we get up at once and spend our time learning
these things? or do we just go on as before, and think our own way good
enough? 'We are fools and worse, and will not take a telling.'" A smile
broke upon her lip now for the first time as she looked at him.
"'Pig-headed!'" she said.

Caius had seen that smile before. It passed instantly, and she sat
before him with grave, unruffled demeanour; but all his thoughts and
feelings seemed a-whirl. He could not collect his mind; he could not
remember what she had said exactly; he could not think what to answer;
indeed, he could not think at all. There had been a likeness to his
phantastic lady-love of the sea; then it was gone again; but it left him
with all his thoughts confounded. At length--because he felt that he
must look like a fool indeed--he spoke, stammering the first thing that
occurred to him:

"The patient that I have seen did not appear to be in a house that was
ill-ventilated or--or--that is, he was isolated from the rest of the
family."

He perceived that the lady had not the slightest knowledge of what it
was that had really confused him. He knew that in her eyes, in the eyes
of the maidens, it must appear that her home-thrust had gone to his
heart, that he had changed the subject because too weak to be able to
answer her. He was mortified at this, but he could not retrace his steps
in the conversation, for she had already answered him.

The household he had already visited, she said, with a few others, had
helped her by following sanitary rules; and then she went on talking
about what those rules were, what could and could not be done in the
circumstances of the families affected.

As she talked on, Caius knew that the thing he had thought must be false
and foolish. This woman and that other maiden were not the same in
thought, or character, or deed, or aspect. Furthermore, what experience
he had made him feel certain that the woman who had known him in that
relationship could not be so indifferent to his recognition, so
indifferent to all that was in him to which her beauty appealed, as
this woman was, and of this woman's indifference he felt convinced.

The provision made for the board and lodging of the new doctor was
explained to him. It was not considered safe for him to live with any of
the families of