The doctor went to the bedside. The face on the pillow was that of a young woman--a woman of perhaps twenty-five. It was a face that reminded him of Letty’s. There was the same delicate outline of cheek and chin, the same full, sweet mouth and girlish throat. But the dark head was moving from side to side with each repeating of the name, and the dark eyes were staring wildly. As he leaned down she turned them full upon him. “Laurie! Laurie! Laurie!” she entreated. “Nervous shock,” said the doctor. He lifted a white wrist. It was rigid and the pulse hard. The hand was knotted, too, and shook with its very tenseness. “What put her into this shape?” Eastman did not reply at once. He began to walk the room. Presently he halted behind the doctor. “Mrs. Eastman is--is worried,” he explained. “Wal, I should judge so,” remarked the doctor coldly. He laid an open hand upon the sick woman’s forehead to quiet the constant wagging. “How long’s she been like this?” “Twenty-four hours. Give her something to make her sleep. She’ll go crazy.” “In a case like this you got to remove the cause.” The doctor spoke severely. The whole thing looked bad to him. Eastman made no answer, but left the room, for the Chinese had summoned him noiselessly from the door. Left alone, the doctor prepared an opiate and administered one draught of it, after which he took a chair beside the bed and again lifted a tense wrist. Presently Mrs. Eastman ceased to murmur her heart-broken plaint. Her clenched fingers relaxed their hold on the counterpane. Then the strained lids of the sufferer fluttered down. When she was breathing deep and regularly, with a peaceful smile on the sweet mouth and her hands folded on her breast, he leaned back. And, looking at her, his thoughts returned to Letty and to the tiny bird’s-nest of a house perched below in a niche of the mountain. He could see a strong young figure going to and fro through the cozy rooms; himself beside a wood fire, with his books about him. Spring came a trifle later here on the tilted crown of Blue Top, fall arrived a little early, which meant many evenings cool enough for a cheery blaze. And if the mine was off the line of the railroad, that did not---- Eastman entered hurriedly, leaving the door open behind him. The doctor rose, the look of day-dreaming still in his eyes. “She’s quiet,” he said in a low voice. “What else can I attend to up here?” “This is all.” As Eastman answered his own look was averted. “Our new physician’s due to-day--Doctor Fowler, of San Francisco.” “I--I see.” A surge of red deepened the tan on the doctor’s face. “I s’pose you won’t need me no more.” “How much do I owe you?” There was dismissal in Eastman’s tone. The other closed the canvas case and picked up his hat. Then he leaned over the sleeper for a moment. When he started slowly toward the door the spring was gone from his step. He seemed not to have heard the question.