After they had visited Parker Hitchcock, Sommers conducted her over the camp. Some of the cots were occupied by gaunt figures of men whom she had known, and at the end of their inspection, she remarked thoughtfully: "I see that there is something to do here. It makes me feel alive once more." The next month, while Parker dragged slowly through the stages of the disease, Miss Hitchcock worked energetically with the nurses. Sommers met her here and there about the camp and at their hurried meals. The heat and the excitement told upon her, but her spirited, good-humored mood, which was always at play, carried her on. Finally, the convalescents were sent north to cooler spots, and the camp was closed. Parker Hitchcock was well enough to be moved to Chicago, and Sommers, who had been relieved, took charge of him and a number of other convalescents, who were to return to the West. The last hours of the journey Sommers and Miss Hitchcock spent together. The train was slowly traversing the dreary stretches of swamp and sand-hills of northern Indiana. "I remember how forlorn this seemed the other time--four years ago!" Sommers exclaimed. "And how excited I was as the city came into view around the curve of the lake. That was to be my world." "And you didn't find it to your liking," Miss Hitchcock replied, with a little smile. "I couldn't understand it; the thing was like raw spirits. It choked you." "I think I understand now what the matter has always been," she resumed after a little interval. "You thought we were all exceptionally selfish, but we were all just like every one else,--running after the obvious, common pleasures. What could you expect! Every boy and girl in this country is told from the first lesson of the cradle, over and over, that success is the one great and good thing in life. The people here are young and strong, and you can't blame them if they interpret that text a little crudely. But I am beginning to understand what you feel." "We can't escape the fact, though," Sommers responded. "Life must be based, to a large extent, on gain, on mere living. Nature has ordered it." "Only in cases like yours," she murmured. "_I_ can never free myself from the order of nature. I shall always be the holder of power accumulated by some one else." As Sommers refrained from making the platitudinous reply that such a remark seemed to demand, they were silent for several minutes. Then she asked, with an air of constraint: "What will you do? I mean after your visit to us, for, of course, you must rest." Sommers smiled ironically. "That is the question every one asks. 'What will you do? what will you do?' Suppose I should say _'Nothing'_? We are always planning. No one is ready to wait and turn his hand to the nearest job. To-morrow, next month, in good time, I shall know what that is." "It puts out of the question a career, personal ambition."