She found Lindaberry flushed with a sudden fever, that burned brightly on his worn cheeks and in the luminous brilliant eyes, which scarcely recognized her. Doctor Lampson was there. It was an attack of influenza, brought on by exposure and the drain on his vitality, which might be serious in his present condition. She remained obstinately all night, sharing the watches with Clarice. The fever, which flared up fiercely at first, subsided somewhat with the coming of the day, leaving him quiet, but in a dangerously weak condition. When again she had the opportunity to return to her room, she remembered Winona. The fear of what might happen to the wasted man at whose bedside she had watched, the cleansing of the spirit which the single thought of death had brought, had washed away all bitterness. She opened the door with longing, her arms ready. The room was empty, the bed untouched! In the center a trunk stood locked and corded. When she returned again in the afternoon, even the trunk had disappeared. Miss Pim, who arrived with professional, calculating eye, answered her outpouring of questions by a magnificent gesture of disdain. "Said she was going to a house-party--for a week. That's what she _said_! H'm, I've got the trunk, if I haven't got two weeks' board! We shall see what we shall see! _I_ have my suspicions!" CHAPTER XXV During the days in which Lindaberry lay weak and shattered, slowly struggling back to strength and a new grip on things, some perverse spirit seemed to actuate Dodo in her attitude toward Massingale. She had remained without seeing him for forty-eight hours after Christmas, refusing to make the advance when he had stayed away. Feeling a need of retaliation, she went to luncheon twice with Harrigan Blood in the short hours in which she absented herself from the sick-room. When finally, the third day, Massingale capitulated and came to see her, she treated him with the greatest indifference, inventing new stories, incredible, but galling to his pride. "Why didn't you come?" he said, without preliminaries. "I have other friends and other engagements!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Besides, I have resolved to make it easier for you." "For me?" "To be just a father confessor!" she said maliciously. He had no answer that he could phrase, so he waited, staring at his boot in perplexity, aware of the lights that were dancing in her roguish eyes. "And dinner--Christmas dinner?" "Engaged, too; my other friends don't leave things to chance!" "Why do you treat me this way?" he asked, frowning. "What way? I'm sure I'm very nice to you! I'm not even angry because you've been sulking all this time!" She stood before him, laughing, her head on one side, her hands on her hips. He made a movement as if to seize her, and she sprang away. "Don't let's quarrel; I've been quite miserable!"