day, and loving, and in fact he noticed her appearance, and asked her what was the matter, and why she breathed so short.

Then she drew his hand over her eyes, so that she might not see how he would look, and the beautiful curve of her lip broke a little, for she felt so sorry for her husband; but her firm voice carried itself with courage (Jean never had the invalid's whine), and she told him what the doctor said.

Marshall Avery listened in a silence which might have meant the utmost of distress or the innermost of skepticism. He walked to the window and stood for a while looking out into the lighted street. Perhaps he had a blundering, masculine notion of doing the best thing for her. She would be the first to believe that.

"I 'll see Thorne about this," he said presently. "I can't have him putting you in a panic. You 've grown very nervous lately.

"Cheer up, Jean," he added, coming over to her sofa. "Don't grow hysteric, whatever happens."

He sat down and put his arm around her. Five minutes ago she would have clung to him and poured her soul out on his breast—would have put up her hand to his cheek and blessed him and worshiped him, as a wife does—and would have spared him the worst of everything, and given him the best; refrained from complaint, and lavished hope; made little of her own suffering, and much of his distress for her sake, as this wife could.... Now, she lay quite still and irresponsive. She did not speak, but tried to smile gently upon him. Then he saw her color change, and he flung the window up—for he was startled—and held her to the air.

"Poor girl!" he said. "Poor Jean! My poor Jean!"

"Oh, don't!" cried Jean. For the tenderness, coming after that other, well-nigh slew her. She began to sob,—the cruel sobs that wreck a weakened heart,—and the man fought for her life for an hour.

When Dr. Thorne came the danger was quite over; as it usually is in such cases before the physician can arrive; but he said roughly,—

"What have you been doing to her?"

"He has been saving my life," panted Jean.

"Well," replied Esmerald Thorne, "he can."

When the two men went downstairs, the doctor said,—

"Your pardon,—if I wronged you, Avery?" for he was generous in apology for so imperious a man.

"Why, yes, doctor," returned the husband, with a puzzled face, "I think you did."

Jean lay quietly on the blue lounge. Pink and the baby were taken over to Helen's. The house was unnaturally still. Marshall was coming home in the middle of the afternoon to see her—to see her! The sick woman seemed to herself for that span of peace like a bride again, cherished and happy. Care and illness had never occurred. Life had not dulled the eyes of love. Use had never threatened joy with indifference. This word, that deed, such a scene, all were phantasms of the fog into which she had fallen. She must have grown morbid, as the sick do. Oh, the rose-red star hung in the heavens yet!

His key clicked in the lock, and he came running up the stairs; dashed in, and knelt beside the lounge; then put his arm about her quietly, for he was shocked when he saw how she looked. His dark, fine face was broken with his feeling. Hers quivered as she lifted it to his kiss.

"Did you lose the case, poor dear?" she said.

"Curse the case!" cried Avery. "What's a case? ... I 'm not going gunning, Jean. I 'm going to stay with you."

Color brushed all over her wan cheek, her brow, her lips.

"I was so afraid of guns!" she pleaded. "I always have been!"

"It is one of your weaknesses," replied the husband, a shade less tenderly.

"I know, dear. I have so many! Guns—and boats—I am ashamed of myself. They 're like snakes. The terror is born in me. I don't know how to help it. You are very patient with me, Marshall. Perhaps, if I were stronger—but when one is ill, one can't—always—help things." ...

"Never mind," he said, in a magnanimous tone. "When you get well, you will feel differently. We must get you well, now. That is all I care for. It is all I care for in the world," he added, warmly and earnestly.

She stirred towards him with an expression that would have moved a far more unworthy man than he. It was quite unconscious with her, and as instinctive as a law of nature. So a flower pleads for light. So life asks for nutrition.

"Could n't you sit up—if I held you? Try!" he commanded, shaking his head in a boyish way he had: she could not have told how she loved to see it. He took her in his arms, and carried her across the room to the easy-chair. There he gathered her like a child, and put his cheek to hers, murmuring little words and phrases that both loved—language of their honeymoon, and joyous years. She drank them down as if they had been the breath of life.

"Doctors don't know!" he cried. "I believe you could get well."

"I know I could," said Jean.

"You will! I say you must. You shall!" insisted Marshall Avery, in his passionate, peremptory voice. Jean did not reply. But she smiled divinely into his bending face. Swiftly she saw the room flooded with roselight. A star swam in mid-ether. Two floated in it, with bridal eyes. Earth was far and forgotten. Heaven was close.

He was quite devoted to her for a week or two after this; came home early, took her sometimes to drive, made much of little family jokes and merriment, admired everything she wore, gave her a white silk Spanish shawl, and brought her the latest novels; sent her flowers like a lover, and spent his evenings with her. He talked of another maid to take care of the children, so that Molly could give her time to the invalid. But Mrs. Avery shook her head. They could not afford that.

"You are so generous to me, Marshall! ... I am sorry it is so expensive to be sick. But I 'm getting better, dear—don't you see I am? I have n't felt so well for a year," she added.

"Oh, we 'll have you round again pretty soon," he said, with that hearty optimism which, one could not have told exactly why, seemed just to miss of the nature of sympathy. But Jean's drafts on sympathy had always been scanty. It was very much as it was about the lace curtains. She could get along without what other women demanded. At least, she had always thought she could. It used to be so. She was troubled sometimes to find that sickness creates new heavens and a new earth, and that the very virtues of health may turn again and rend one. It was as if one had acquired citizenship in a strange planet, where character and nature change places.

It was with a kind of fear that she received her husband's acceleration of tenderness. How was she to forego it, when the time came that it might—she omitted to acknowledge to herself that it would—overlook her again? She tried feverishly to get better in a hurry, as if she had been in some Southern climate where she was but a transient tourist. She tried so hard, in fact, as sometimes to check the real and remarkable improvement which had now befallen her.

One day Mr. Avery announced that he had the toothache, and if he were not so driven he would go and see Armstrong; he meant to give Armstrong all his work after this; Armstrong was a good fellow, and they often met Saturdays at the club. But the great Electric case was up just then, and necessary dentistry was an impossible luxury to the young lawyer. Endurance was a novelty, and Avery grew nervous under it. He bore pain neither better nor worse than most men; and he was really suffering. Any wife but Jean would have called him cross. Jean called him her poor boy. She dragged herself from her lounge—she had been a little less well the last few days—and lavished herself, as women like Jean do, pouring out her own tenderness—a rare wine. After all, there are not too many tender women; Jean was a genius in sympathy. She spent more sweetness and strength on that toothache than the other kind of woman has to give her husband if he meets a mortal