"Why, yes," said J.W., with a little break in his voice, "it wouldn't seem right any other way. We can have the dinner, or breakfast or whatever it is, just the same, but we'll be married in his room. I'm glad you feel that way about it too; though it's just like you." And it was so. J.W. went up to the study as soon as he could rid himself of the dust of the day's travel, more eager to show Walter Drury he loved him than to tell his story or even to arrange for the wedding. As to that ceremony, the plans had long ago been understood; nothing more was needed than to tell Walter Drury his study afforded a better background and setting for this particular wedding than a cathedral could provide. J.W. was prepared for a great change in Pastor Drury, but he noticed no such signs of breakdown as he had expected to see. He did not know that the beloved pastor was keyed up for this meeting. He could not guess that the beaming eye, the old radiant smile, the touch of color in a face usually pale, were on special if unconscious display because the pastor's heart was thanking God that he had been permitted to welcome home his son in the gospel. Those had been dreary days, in the hospital, despite the ceaseless ministries of nurses and doctors and friends from Delafield. This hospital was a place of noble service, one of many such places which have arisen in the Methodism of the last forty years. It was a hospital through and through--the last word in equipment and competence, but not at all an "institution." It was at once a home for the sick and a training school of the Christian graces, where the distressed of body and mind could be given the relief they needed--all of it given gladly, in Christ's name. Walter Drury was not unmindful of the care and skill which the hospital staff lavished on him, though no more faithfully on him than on many an unknown or unresponsive patient. But he was in a pitifully questioning mood. The doctors had told him he could not expect to preach again. When the district superintendent had come to visit him, he carried away with him Walter Drury's request for retirement at the coming session of the Annual Conference. In his quiet moments--there were so many of them now--the broken man counted up his years of service, all too few, as it seemed to him, and lacking much of what they might have shown in outcomes for the church and the kingdom. His Conference was one of the few which paid the full annuity claim of its retired preachers, but even so he had not much to look forward to. His twenty-five years in the active ranks meant that he could count on twenty-five times $15 a year, $375, on which to live, when he gave up his work.