Knowing that his telephone message would allay Mrs. Thatcher's greatest anxiety, Huntington made no effort to return to the shore that night, and when morning came it was a question whether he could go at all. He knew that Hamlen would keep his promise so long as he remained master of himself, but the roving eyes and the twitching nerves warned Huntington that he must not place too great reliance upon this expectation. All through the hours of darkness, without his friend's knowledge, he watched over him, sharing in sympathetic silence the suffering which the tossing body endured in expressing the tortures of the mind. When morning came at last Hamlen was quieter, but this condition was due to the exhaustion of high fever rather than to even temporary relief. Hastily summoning a physician, Huntington watched the examination, becoming more and more apprehensive as the expression of concern deepened on the doctor's face. Together they stepped into the hall, where the doctor shook his head gravely. "Tell me something of what led up to this," he demanded. Huntington briefly sketched Hamlen's history, and the climax. "It will be nip and tuck," the doctor said crisply. "His resistance is low, but he'll probably pull through. What I'm afraid of is his reason. We'll break this fever now, and then you must find something to interest him outside of himself. That is his only salvation." "I wish I thought I could," Huntington replied doubtfully. "There will be no help from him, for the last thing he desires is to live." "But if to live is to--" "I know,--I shall do my best." A week later Hamlen's life was out of danger, but at times his mental wanderings confirmed the doctor's worst apprehensions. Yet Huntington came to dread the depression of the saner moments more than the vagrant hallucinations. The dramatic details of the unleashing of the war-dogs of one nation after another should have been enough to arouse his interest, but his only comment was, "It is a fitting end to a hollow world, with its thin veneer of sham civilization; would to God it had come sooner!" Finally it seemed safe to leave the patient in the care of the trained nurse, and Huntington made his deferred return to Sagamore Hall. Marian had kept in touch with Hamlen's progress as well as she could over the telephone, but there was much which her heart craved to learn more intimately. The illness afforded a simple explanation to the other guests of the peculiar disappearance of both men, so Huntington's confidences needed to be told to Mrs. Thatcher alone. Still, there was a single exception. One of the first questions Huntington asked of Marian was whether Merry knew the whole truth, and when he learned from both how much each had gained from their mutual confidences he insisted that the girl hear from him the details of what had happened since.