Max--odd enough the name sounded, and she hesitated over it at first, with a half-laughing apology, then forgetting all but her book, it came out naturally and sweetly--oh, so sweetly sometimes--Max _died._ How, I do not clearly remember, but I know he died, and never married the girl he loved; that the time when he held her in his arms, and kissed her before her father and them all, was the last time they ever saw one another. She read, sometimes hurriedly and almost inaudibly, and then just like the people who were speaking, as if quite forgetting herself in them. I do not think she even recognised that there was a listener in the room. Perhaps she thought, because I sat so still, that I did not hear or feel, that I, Max Urquhart, have altogether forgotten what it is to be young and to love. When she ceased, Mr. Johnston was sound asleep; we both sat silent. I stretched out my hand for the written pages, to go over some of the sentences again; she went on reading the German volume to herself. Her face was turned away, but I could see the curve of her cheek, and the smooth, spiral twist of her hair behind--I suppose, if untwisted, it would reach down to her knees. This German girl, Thekla, might have had just such hair; this boy--this Max--might have been allowed sometimes to touch it--reverently to kiss it. ***** I was interrupted here. A case at the hospital; James McDermot--fever-ward--cut his throat in a fit of delirium. There must have been great neglect in the nurse or orderly--perhaps in more than they. These night absences were bad--this pre-occupation--though I have tried earnestly to fulfil all my duties. Yet, as I walked back, the ghastly figure of the dead man was ever before me. Have I not a morbid conscience, which revels in self-accusation? Suppose there were one who knew me as I knew myself--could shew myself unto myself, and say, “Poor soul, 'tis nothing. Forget thyself, think of another--thy other self--of me.” Why recount this, one of the countless painful incidents that are always recurring to our profession? Because, having begun, I must tell you all that happens to me, as a man would, coming home after his day's labour to his--let me write down the word steadily--his _wife_. His wife; nearer to him than any mortal thing--bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh; his rest, comfort, and delight--whom, more than almost any man, a doctor requires, seeing that on the dark side of human life his path must continually lie. Sometimes, though, bright bits come across us--such as when the heavy heart is relieved, or the shadow of death lifted off from a dwelling: moments when the doctor, much to his own conscious humiliation, is apt to be regarded as an angel of deliverance--seasons when he is glad to linger a little amidst the glow of happiness he has been instrumental in bringing, before he turns out again into the shadows of his appointed way.