“Oh, don’t!” Mowbray tried to arrange his features for the benefit of the passersby. “You know I’m fond of you no end. Why----” “Get along now. That’s the last whistle. Good-bye, and write me nice gossippy letters. It’s only a few months, anyhow.” Mowbray walked down the gangplank with his head in the air, and, as he turned on the dock to lift his hat, Ida noticed that his face, whose charm was its boyish gayety, looked suddenly older, and almost as determined as Valdobia’s. “Oh, Lord!” she thought, as she turned away, “men! They’re as alike as lead pencils in a box. But I guess I can manage him.” Ora stayed in bed for two days; reaction left her physically exhausted and she slept most of the time. On the third day Ida peremptorily dressed her and took her on deck. A wireless from Gregory, announcing that Mark was holding his own, further revived her, and before they reached New York another wireless was still more reassuring. A few years before, when the ores of Butte Hill were roasted in the open and the poisonous fumes were often as thick as the worst of London fogs, pneumonia ran its course in twenty-four hours to the grave, but in these days the patient had a fighting chance despite the altitude. The Butte doctors were experts in pneumonia, so many of the careless miners were afflicted, and Mark not only had a sound constitution but never had been a heavy drinker. There was every reason to expect him to pull through, as Ida assured her friend whenever they were alone; but she managed to meet several agreeable people, and kept herself and Ora companioned by them throughout the voyage. Valdobia was still in Rome; his mother was dying. He had written daily to Ora and she had read and reread his letters. They said neither too much nor too little; but he was one of life’s artists and he managed to pervade them with an atmosphere that was both sweet and disturbing. His telegram, when he had read the news of her husband’s misadventure in the newspapers, was a masterpiece. If he was unable to grieve over the possibility of Mr. Blake’s abrupt removal from a scene where he was the one superfluous actor, too well-bred to betray his relief, and too little of a hypocrite to be verbose in condolence, his attitude was so finely impersonal, and it was so obvious that he knew exactly how she felt, that Ora liked him more than ever if only for rousing her stricken sense of humour.