There was a quick parting in the crowd. A man he had once known shoved two of the policemen to one side, and he heard a girl’s voice speaking his name, like a sob; and She came running out across the open space and fell on her knees beside the stretcher, and bent down over him, and he was clasped in two young, firm arms. “Of course it is not real, of course it is not She,” he assured himself. “Because She would not do such a thing. Before all these people She would not do it.” But he trembled and his heart throbbed so cruelly that he could not bear the pain. She was pretending to cry. “They wired us you had started for Tampa on the hospital ship,” She was saying, “and Aunt and I went all the way there before we heard you had been sent North. We have been on the cars a week. That is why I missed you. Do you understand? It was not my fault. I tried to come. Indeed, I tried to come.” She turned her head and looked up fearfully at the young Doctor. “Tell me, why does he look at me like that?” she asked. “He doesn’t know me. Is he very ill? Tell me the truth.” She drew in her breath quickly. “Of course you will tell me the truth.” When she asked the question he felt her arms draw tight about his shoulders. It was as though she was holding him to herself, and from some one who had reached out for him. In his trouble he turned to his old friend and keeper. His voice was hoarse and very low. “Is this the same young lady who was on the transport--the one you used to drive away?” In his embarrassment, the hospital steward blushed under his tan, and stammered. “Of course it’s the same young lady,” the Doctor answered briskly. “And I won’t let them drive her away.” He turned to her, smiling gravely. “I think his condition has ceased to be dangerous, madam,” he said. People who in a former existence had been his friends, and Her brother, gathered about his stretcher and bore him through the crowd and lifted him into a carriage filled with cushions, among which he sank lower and lower. Then She sat beside him, and he heard Her brother say to the coachman, “Home, and drive slowly and keep on the asphalt.” The carriage moved forward, and She put her arm about him and his head fell on her shoulder, and neither of them spoke. The vision had lasted so long now that he was torn with the joy that after all it might be real. But he could not bear the awakening if it were not, so he raised his head fearfully and looked up into the beautiful eyes above him. His brows were knit, and he struggled with a great doubt and an awful joy. “Dearest,” he said, “is it real?” “Is it real?” she repeated. Even as a dream, it was so wonderfully beautiful that he was satisfied if it could only continue so, if but for a little while. “Do you think,” he begged again, trembling, “that it is going to last much longer?” She smiled, and, bending her head slowly, kissed him. “It is going to last--always,” she said. THE MAN WITH ONE TALENT