It seemed to him incredible that this shaken spirit before him could be John Leaver--Leaver, whom, as he had told his wife, he had often envied his perfect self-command, his supposed steadiness of pulse, his whole strong, cool personality, unaffected by issues such as always keyed Burns himself up to a tremendous tension, making him pale with the strain. "Leaver's made of steel wires," had been his description of his friend to Ellen. Well, the steel wires were stretched and broken, now, no doubt of that. The question was whether they could ever be mended and restrung. When Leaver was comfortable again,--comfortable as far as an evenly beating heart and a return of blood to the parts which needed it could make him,--Burns spoke to him once more. "We won't talk about this any more to-day, Jack," he said. "You've had enough for now, and I have what I needed,--the facts to work upon. Just let me say this much. I'm not discouraged by anything I've heard to-day. I'll not try any bluffs or jollyings with you, because I know they wouldn't work, but I do say this, honestly: I'm not discouraged. And I'm interested--interested to the bottom of my heart. I'm going to put the best there is in me into this problem. I never tackled anything in my life that appealed to me more powerfully. If that's any comfort just now, I offer it. If you were my brother I couldn't be more anxious to pull you out of this ditch. Now, trust me, and try to go to sleep." Leaver did not look up at the kind, almost boyishly tender face above him, but he pressed the hand which grasped his own, and Burns saw a tear creep out from under the closed lids of the eyes under which the black shadows lay so deeply. The well man took himself away from the sick one as quickly as he could after that,--he couldn't bear the sight of that tear! It was more eloquent of Leaver's weakness than all his difficult words. When he met Miss Mathewson, an hour afterward, in the hall, on her way back to her patient, he delayed her. "I want you to do more than nurse this case, Amy," he said, fixing her with a certain steady look of his with which he always gave commands. "I want you to put all your powers, as a woman, into it. Forget that you are nursing Dr. Leaver, try to think of him as a friend. You can make one of him, if you try, for you have in you qualities which will appeal to him--if you will let him see them. You have hardly let even me see them,"--he smiled as he said it,--"but my eyes have been opened at last. I'm inclined to believe that you can do more for our patient than even my wife or I,--if you will. Suppose,"--he spoke with a touch of the dangerously persuasive manner he could assume when he willed, and which most people found it hard to resist,--"you just let yourself go, and try--deliberately try--to make Dr. Leaver like you!" She coloured furiously under the suggestion. "Dr. Burns! Do you realize what you're saying?"