But the doctor sat on in the dim room, long after his charity sick had slipped back again to her happy dreams. And as he sat, there waxed a flame in him, and he pledged himself that henceforward there should be no pausing, neither compassion nor compunction. What mattered the troubles of individuals? What mattered himself, or that Duty to-night seemed visaged like an Iron Maid? Here, indeed, there beckoned him the great good task. The day of the rocky plain and the prophet in a loincloth was gone; but was there less might in the printed word and the penny newspaper? Spare this child, Lord, and the wrongs done upon her shall not again lack a voice.... And later, much later, when the tall young man limped back to his desolate office, he did not at once go to bed, though the small hours then were fast growing. Six weeks, and more, he had to write his articles in: but there was that in him now which would not be denied. He sat again at his old secretary, a cheap pad before him, and the words that ran from his stub of a pencil were words winged with fire.... * * * * * If this was a compact offered, it seemed that it had been sealed in high places. Next morning, which was the morning of September 4th, Miss Masters came smiling to the Garland breakfast-table; and all that day, for the first time in seven weeks, Kern's temperature did not move above 103. On the morning following, it slipped down another half-degree; on the third, the same; and on the fourth morning there existed no reasonable doubt that she was going to get well. But V. Vivian, the doctor, was not one to forget his mistakes in thanksgiving, merely because the consequences had been lifted from his shoulders. If he had failed once to provide for his little friend, there should never be any trouble on that score again. So he made it all sure and definite now, by the legal-sounding paper he drew up; and Henry Bloom, the undertaker on the next block, who was also a notary public, came in and certified the signature. And he too declined his fee for his trouble, to the wealthy young testator's perceptible annoyance.... That was on September 12th. And next day it was that the morning "Post" informed all readers that Mrs. B. Thornton Heth and Miss Heth, having just returned from a summer's travel in Europe, had arrived in the city, and were again at their town-house, No. 903 Washington Street. XXIII One Summer in Europe, which she never speaks of now; Home again, with what a difference; Novel Questionings, as to what is a Friend, etc.