At the end of five months Stella returned to Georgia--restored--a health enthusiast. It now became her joy, in and out of season, whenever she could secure hearers, to relate the details of her illness and the miracle of her restoration. The methods of the special hospital that wrought such wonders for her were reiterated in detail, and for years she made herself thoroughly wearisome by her talk of diet and exercise, special bathing, out-of-door work and prescribed habits. She kept herself constantly conspicuous in her efforts to reform others to her new ways of living. For over four years, she sedulously adhered to the routine outlined by the hospital, with such devotion to, and augmentation of, details that she had little time for church and practically no time for household affairs. As had been her habit in past experiences her enthusiasm was causing her to overdo, and the business of keeping well seemed now her only object in life. This could not go on interminably. Something had to happen, and her mother's rather sudden death proved the shock which was to relieve her from the overenthusiastic slavery to an impracticable routine. Stella Beckman at forty-five is sadly less fine and worthy than the Stella Beckman of eighteen. Religion, Love and Science have each entered her life deeply to enrich it, but all of these built upon the sands, the shifting sands of an emotional nature which had never laid the granite foundation of reason. Since the mother's death, the logic of her feelings has become more and more crippled by false valuations. She lives at home keeping house for the boys, recounting each mealtime the endless list of her feelings; bringing herself, her sickness, her hospital experiences wearisomely into the conversation with each caller. The emotional stability and the will to persevere even at considerable cost, which marked youth, are gone. At forty-five her life is objectlessly spasmodic, the old family-habit of talking of self and the family-fetish of discussing sickness have honeycombed her character and made her hopelessly tiresome. And her feeling-life is as restless as a troubled sea. CHAPTER XIII WILLING ILLNESS