“Only,” supplemented the still ruffled Lawton, “she doesn’t care to jeopardize her card in the Troublemakers’ Union by admitting it?” “Personally,” said Miss Gregg with bitterly smiling frankness, “I’d rather be a Troublemaker than an Operation-fancier. However, that is quite a matter of opinion. And medical books have placed ignorance within the reach of all. Medical colleges teach that sublime truth: ‘When in doubt don’t let anybody know it!’ But--” “It’s a miracle,” intervened Vail, coming to the aid of peace, “that poor old Clive could have come through this as he has. Wounded, then falling out of a window, then--whatever may have happened to him when he met Oz--and getting well in spite of it. By the way, sir, has he asked to see any of us?” Dr. Lawton was stalking majestically doorward. Now on the threshold he paused. His jarred temper rejoiced at the chance to pick out any victim at all to make uncomfortable. “Yes,” he returned, “he has. He asked for Doris here not less than eight times while I was up there.” The girl flushed hotly. Vail went slightly pale. Then he followed the doctor hastily from the room on pretense of seeing the visitor to the front door. Doris and Miss Gregg looked silently at each other. “Youth is stranger than fiction,” said the old lady, cryptically. Doris, scarlet and uncomfortable, made no reply. And presently Thaxton Vail came back into the room. “Doris,” he said very bravely indeed, “Dr. Lawton says it won’t do Clive any harm at all to see you after he has slept off the quarter-grain of morphia he gave him. He says it may do him a lot of good. I’ll tell the nurse to let you know when he wakes.” Then, not trusting himself to say more lest he lose the pleasant smile he maintained with such sore-hearted difficulty, he went quickly out again, hurrying upstairs on his errand to the nurse. His soul was heavy within him. Before the war he knew Clive Creede had been his dangerous rival for Doris’s favor. Time and again Vail had had to battle against pettiness in order to avoid rancor toward this lifelong chum of his. Then, after the supposed Clive’s return from overseas, Vail had been ashamed of his own joy in noting that Doris’s interest in Creede seemed to have slackened, although the man himself was still eagerly her suitor. And now--now that the real Clive was back--surrounded by the glamour of mystery and of unmerited misfortune--the real Clive, whose first question had been for Doris--Thaxton Vail’s air-castles and the golden dreams that peopled them seemed tottering to a crash. CHAPTER XVIII WHEN HE CAME HOME Yes, manfully Vail climbed the stairs to the anteroom, where the severely stiff and iodoform-perfumed nurse sat primly reading while her patient slept. Across the threshold of the sick chamber lay stretched a tawny and fluffy bulk.