"Luella!" He would lurch up in bed. "Luella! Where _are_ you?" "I'm right here, Charles, beside you." She tried to make her voice cheerful and warm. "If you want to go, Luella, you'd better go. I don't seem to be enough for you any more." She denied this soothingly. "I've thought it over, Luella, and I can't ruin my health on account of you--" Then quickly, and passionately: "Don't go, Luella, for God's sake, don't go away and leave me! Promise me you won't! I'll do anything you say if you won't go." His humility annoyed her most; he was a reserved man, and she had never guessed at the extent of his devotion before. "I'm only going for a minute. It's Doctor Moon, your friend, Charles. He came to-day to see how you were, don't you remember? And he wants to talk to me before he goes." "You'll come back?" he persisted. "In just a little while. There--lie quiet." She raised his head and plumped his pillow into freshness. A new trained nurse would arrive to-morrow. In the living-room Doctor Moon was waiting--his suit more worn and shabby in the afternoon light. She disliked him inordinately, with an illogical conviction that he was in some way to blame for her misfortune, but he was so deeply interested that she couldn't refuse to see him. She hadn't asked him to consult with the specialists, though--a doctor who was so down at the heel.... "Mrs. Hemple." He came forward, holding out his hand, and Luella touched it, lightly and uneasily. "You seem well," he said. "I am well, thank you." "I congratulate you on the way you've taken hold of things." "But I haven't taken hold of things at all," she said coldly. "I do what I have to----" "That's just it." Her impatience mounted rapidly. "I do what I have to, and nothing more," she continued; "and with no particular good-will." Suddenly she opened up to him again, as she had the night of the catastrophe--realizing that she was putting herself on a footing of intimacy with him, yet unable to restrain her words. "The house isn't going," she broke out bitterly. "I had to discharge the servants, and now I've got a woman in by the day. And the baby has a cold, and I've found out that his nurse doesn't know her business, and everything's just as messy and terrible as it can be!" "Would you mind telling me how you found out the nurse didn't know her business?" "You find out various unpleasant things when you're forced to stay around the house." He nodded, his weary face turning here and there about the room. "I feel somewhat encouraged," he said slowly. "As I told you, I promise nothing; I only do the best I can." Luella looked up at him, startled. "What do you mean?" she protested. "You've done nothing for me--nothing at all!" "Nothing much--yet," he said heavily. "It takes time, Mrs. Hemple." The words were said in a dry monotone that was somehow without offense, but Luella felt that he had gone too far. She got to her feet.