Two impulses, he recognized, held a relentless warfare within him; he pictured them as Christ and Satan; but the first would overthrow all else. “Glory!” he cried mechanically aloud. He put down the hairbrush and inspected the razors on their shelf. The bright morning light flashed along the rubbed fine blades; they were beautiful, flawless, without a trace of defilement. He felt the satin smoothness of the steel with an actual thrill of pleasure; his eyes narrowed until they were like the glittering points of knives; he held the razor firmly and easily, with a sinewy poised wrist. Finally, his suspenders in position over a collarless striped shirt, he moved out to the bare sharp descent before his house and poured water onto the roots of a struggling lilac bush. Its leaves were now coated with dust; but the week before it had borne an actual cluster of scented blossom; and he was still in the wonder of the lavender fragrance on the meager starved stem. The beat of hoofs approached, and he turned, seeing Doctor Frazee in his yellow cart. “Oh, doctor!” he called instinctively. The other stopped, a man with a lean face, heavy curved nose and penetrating gaze behind large spectacles. He was in reality a veterinary, but Lemuel Doret, out of a profound caution, had discovered him to be above the narrow scope of local prejudice. “I wish you'd look at Flavilla,” Doret continued. The doctor hesitated, and then turned shortly in at the sidewalk. “It will hurt no one if I do that.” Above Flavilla's flushed face, a tentative finger on her wrist, Frazee's expression grew serious. “I'll tell you this,” he asserted; “she's sick. You had better call Markley to-day. And until he comes don't give her any solids. You can see she's in a fever.” “Can't you tend her? I'd put more on you than any fresh young hospital stiff.” “Certainly not,” he responded. When the latter had gone Lemuel Doret found his wife in the kitchen. She wore a pale-blue wrapper with a soiled scrap of coarse lace at her full throat, her hair was gathered into a disorderly knot, and already there was a dab of paint on either cheek. She had been pretty when he married her, pretty and full of an engaging sparkle, a ready wit; but the charm had gone, the wit had hardened into a habit of sarcasm. They had been married twelve years, and in itself, everything considered, that was remarkable and held a great deal in her favor. She had been faithful. It was only lately, in Nantbrook, that her dissatisfaction had materialized in vague restless hints. “Frazee says Flavilla is sick,” he told her. “He thinks we ought to get Markley.” She made a gesture of skepticism. “All those doctors send you to each other,” she proclaimed. “Like as not he'll get half for doing it.” “She don't look right.”