“Why, you thanked me, after forbidding me to thank you for an immeasurably greater service.” “Oh, but that’s different,” she replied. “You are the Master. I am only a woman.” “Dorothy,” said Arthur seriously, “don’t you know I think there is nothing in the world better or nobler than a woman?” “That’s because you are a man and don’t know,” she answered out of a wisdom so superior that it would not argue the point. During the next week Arthur found time in which to prepare and send off for publication a helpful article on “The Plantation Treatment of Typhoid Epidemics.” He also found time in which to ride over to Branton and hold a prolonged conference with Edmonia Bannister. Before a hickory wood fire in the great drawing room they went over all considerations bearing upon Arthur’s affairs and plans and possibilities. “This is the visitation you long ago threatened me with,” said Edmonia. “You said you would come when the stress of the fever should be over, and you told me you had some plan in your mind. Tell me what it was.” “Oh, your past tense is correct there; that was before you wrote to me about Dorothy. Your letter put an end to that scheme at once.” “Did it? I’m very glad.” “But why? You don’t know what it was that I had in mind.” “Perhaps not. Perhaps I have a shrewd idea as to the general features of your plan. At any rate I’m perfectly sure that it was unworthy of you.” “Why do you think that, Edmonia? Surely I have not--” “Oh, yes you have--if you mean that you haven’t deserved to be thought ill of. You have wanted to run away from your duty and your happiness, and it was that sort of thing you had in mind. Otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to plan at all. Besides, you said you didn’t want to have this conversation with me, or to hear about Dorothy till you should be ‘free to act.’ You meant by that ‘free to run away.’ That is why I wrote you about Dorothy.” “Listen, Edmonia!” said the young man pleadingly. “Don’t think of me as a coward or a shirk! Don’t imagine that I have been altogether selfish even in my thoughts! I did plan to run away, as you call it. But it was not to escape duty--for I didn’t know, then, that I had a duty to do. Or rather I thought that my duty called upon me to ‘run away.’ Will you let me tell you just what I felt and thought, and what the plan was that I had in mind?” “Surely, Arthur. I did not really think you selfish, and certainly I did not think you cowardly. If I had, I should have taken pains to save Dorothy from you. But tell me the whole story.”