He turned to his hostess and her friend. While they talked together Burns regarded Amy Mathewson, his long-time a.s.sociate, with renewed wonder, and presently found himself addressing her from an entirely new point of view. This fair girl with the graceful head and the glowing blue eyes could not possibly be the sedate young woman who was accustomed to hand him instruments and sutures, ligate arteries, and attend to various minor matters from the other side of his operating-table. He wondered why he had never before noticed how much real individuality she possessed, nor how really attractive she was of face and person. He decided afresh that his wife was the most wonderful woman in the world, to be able to see at a glance that which had escaped his attention for so long, and he congratulated Miss Mathewson, in his mind, on the possibilities he for the first time saw ahead of her. Clearly after all she was a woman, not a machine!

The party went out to dinner, and Burns looked to see his friend enjoy, as he thought he must, the cleverly planned and deliciously cooked meal which came, perfectly served, upon the table. It was such a dinner as he himself delighted in, unostentatious but satisfying, with certain touches, here and there, calculated to tempt the most capricious palate,--such as he shrewdly judged Leaver, in his presumably lowered state of vitality, to possess.

But to his surprise and dismay the guest barely touched most of the dishes, and ate so sparingly of others that Burns felt himself, with his hearty, normal appet.i.te, a gormandizer. n.o.body made any comment whatever upon Dr. Leaver's lack of appet.i.te, but all three noted, with growing concern, that there were moments when he seemed to keep up with an effort. Instinctively the others made short work of the later courses, and felt a decided relief when it became possible to leave the table and return to the living-room.

By a bit of clever management Ellen was able to put the guest's tall form into a corner of the big davenport, among the blue pillows, where he could receive more support than was possible in any other place. After a little he seemed less fatigued, and charmed them all with his pleasant discourse. Burns himself was soon summoned to the office. He would not allow Miss Mathewson to take up her duties there, though she followed him to offer eagerly to run home and change her attire.

"Not a bit of it," Burns a.s.sured her, in the hall. He regarded her with mischief in his eyes. "Cinderella isn't due at home till the clock strikes twelve," he whispered. "Besides,--the Prince isn't in his usual form to-night. He may need her services as nurse at any minute, judging by his appearance."

That sent her back into the room, as he knew it would. It was, for her, a wonderfully interesting hour which followed, for Dr. Leaver and Mrs.

Burns fell to discussing life in a certain great city, as both knew it from quite different standpoints, and she herself had only to listen and observe. She thought the pair upon the davenport made a striking picture, the woman in her rich and still youthful beauty, her smile a thing to wonder at, her voice low music to the ear; the man, though no older than Burns, worn and grave, yet with a strangely winning personality, and eyes which seemed to see far beneath the surface. In all Amy Mathewson's experience with the men of Burns's profession, she had never met just such a one as John Leaver. The sense of his personal worth and dignity was strong upon her as she watched him; his evident fatigue and weakness appealed to her sympathies; and she forgot herself more completely than she had imagined she could when first summoned to the unaccustomed part she was this evening playing.

But, quite suddenly, the scene changed. In the act of speaking Dr. Leaver suddenly stopped, put one hand to his side, and lay back against the high end of the davenport, breathing short, his face turning pallid, ashen.

Ellen rose to her feet in dismay, but Amy Mathewson sprang toward him, drew him with strong arms gently down to a position more nearly rec.u.mbent, and with fingers on his pulse said in a low voice, "Call the Doctor, please."

Ellen ran, and in a minute had Burns there, striding in, in his white office jacket, his face tense with sudden anxiety. Leaver was panting for breath as Burns felt his pulse and nodded at Amy, who hurried quietly away. She was back very quickly, handing Burns a tiny instrument ready for use. In a moment more the supporting drug was on its way to lend aid, and Burns was bending over his friend again, laying a gentle hand upon the damp forehead, and saying with quiet a.s.surance:

"All right, old boy. We'll have you comfortable in no time. You were too tired to play society man to-night, and we oughtn't to have allowed it."

It was not very long before Leaver was breathing more easily, and a trace of colour had come back to his face. He moved his head and tried to speak naturally:

"I am--rather--ashamed of myself--"

"You've no business to be. When a fellow is played out Nature takes her innings--and she takes all that's coming to her. You're going up to bed in a few minutes, and you're going to stay there till the rest has had a chance to get in some work. Miss Mathewson will stay with you for a bit.

She's a famous nurse."

Leaver's head moved in surprised protest, and Miss Mathewson spoke:

"He doesn't know, Dr. Burns, that that is my profession."

Burns laughed. "Oh, I see. That was a bit startling, for a fact. But she is, Leaver, the most accomplished of her guild, and my right-hand man.

She can make you more comfortable in an hour than I can in a week."

Upstairs, while she released Amy from the apricot frock, that something more in keeping with the duties of a nurse might be donned, Ellen questioned anxiously:

"The Doctor must think him really ill, to speak of keeping him in bed. Do you know what is the matter?"

"His heart action is weak. I don't know the cause, of course. He seems worn out; that showed plainly all the evening. I'm going to run home, Mrs. Burns; my wet things must be quite dry, now. There'll be time, I'm sure. The Doctor won't bring him upstairs for a little yet."

She hurried away, and was back within the half hour. Although she no longer looked the part of the fine lady, the old role seemed hardly hers.

The new fashion of her hair had changed her appearance very completely, and the youthful look it had restored to her remained, to Ellen's no little pleasure. Her cheeks were still flushed with the evening's excitement, and her eyes were charmingly bright and happy.

When everything was in readiness, Burns, in spite of all remonstrance from his friend, lifted him in his powerful arms and carried him upstairs. The exertion made him breathe a little heavily for a moment, but that was all. Leaver was not a light burden, in spite of his thinness, for his frame was that of a man who should carry many pounds more than he now bore.

"You strong man, how I envy you," Leaver said, sadly, as Burns laid him upon the bed.

"Your envy of me can't be a circ.u.mstance to that I've felt, many a time, when I've watched you. But you've been working like a slave too long.

Rest is all you need, man."

But Leaver slowly shook his head. He did not reply to this confident statement, and Burns knew better than to try to argue it out with him just then. Instead, with a warm grip of the hand, he turned his new case over to the care of his nurse, and went away, his heart heavy at sight of a strong man p.r.o.ne.

CHAPTER VI

BROKEN STEEL WIRES

"But I can't stay here," John Leaver protested, a few days afterward. He was still in bed, much against his will, but not, as he was forced to admit, against his judgment, when he allowed it consideration. "I can't impose on Mrs. Burns's and your kindness like this. I shall soon be fit for travel, and then--"

"Would you mind listening to me?" R.P. Burns, M.D., sat comfortably back in a large willow chair, by the bedside, and crossed one leg over the other in a fashion indicative of an intention to settle down to it and have it out. "Just let me state the case to you, and try to look at it from the outside. Of course that's a difficult thing to do, when it happens to be your own case, but you have a judicial mind, and you can do the trick, if anybody can."

Leaver was silent. He lay staring out of the open window beside which his bed had been drawn, his thin cheek showing gaunt hollows, his eyes heavy with unrest. All the scents and sounds of June were pouring in at the three windows of the room; a tangle of rose vines looked in at him from this nearest one. Just before Amy Mathewson had left him, a few minutes ago, for her afternoon rest, she had brought him one wonderful bloom, the queen, it seemed, of all the roses of that June. It lay upon the window-sill, now, within reach of his hand.

Burns began to speak. His tone was matter-of-fact, yet it held inflections of tenderness. His friend's case appealed to him powerfully; his sympathy with Leaver's state of mind, as he was confident he understood it, was intense. "If it were I!" he had said to himself--and to Ellen--and had groaned in spirit at the thought. If it had been his own case, it seemed to him he could not have endured it.

"You were at that sanitorium," Burns began. "Sanitoriums are useful inst.i.tutions, some of them get splendid results. But they have their disadvantages. It's pretty difficult to eliminate the atmosphere of illness. And, for a man whose training and instincts lead him to see behind every face he meets in such a place, it's not an ideal spot at all. What you need is a home, and that's what we're offering you, for as long as you need it."

"And I appreciate it more than any words can express," Leaver said gratefully. He turned his head now, and looked at his host. "Just to know that I have such friends does me good. And I know that you mean all you say. If I were a subject for a cure I might almost be tempted to take you at your word."

"You are a subject for a cure."

Leaver shook his head, turning it away again. "Only to a certain point,"

he said, quietly. "Of course I know that rest and quiet will put my heart right, because there's no organic lesion. Probably I shall build up and get the better of my depression of mind--to a certain extent. But, there's one thing I'm facing I haven't owned to you. You may as well know it. I shall never be able to operate again.... Perhaps you can guess what that means to me," he added. His voice was even, but his breathing was slightly quickened.

Burns was silent for a time, his own heart heavy with sympathy for Leaver. Guess what a conviction like that must mean to a man of Leaver's early eminence in the world of distinguished operative surgery? He surely could. It had been his almost certain knowledge that this was his friend's real trouble which had made him say to himself with a groan, "If it were I!" So he did not answer hastily to persist in a.s.surance that all would yet be well. He knew Leaver understood that sort of professional hypnosis too thoroughly to be affected by it.

Burns got up and took a turn or two up and down the room, thinking things out. His face was graver than patients usually saw it; there was in it, however, a look of determination which grew, moment by moment, as he walked. Presently he came back to the bedside and sat down again.

"Suppose you tell me all about it, Jack," said he. "You haven't done me that honour, yet, you know. Will it be too hard on you? Just to make a clean breast of every thought and every experience which has led you to this point? I know I'm rather forcing myself upon you as your physician.

If you prefer, I'll withdraw from the case, in favour of any better man you may choose, and send for him to-day."

Leaver's head turned back again. "I know no better man," he said, and their eyes met.

"There are plenty of better men," Burns went on, "but I confess I want this case, and am ready to take advantage of having it in my house, for the present, at least. Well, then,--if you can trust me, why not do as I suggest?"

Leaver shivered a little, in the warm June light, and put one hand for a moment over his eyes.

"You don't know what you ask, Red," he said, slowly.

"Don't I? Perhaps not. Yet--I have a notion that I do. It would be a trifle easier to face the rack and thumbscrew, eh? Well, let's get it over. Possibly telling will ease you a bit, after all. It works that way sometimes."

By and by, persisting, gently questioning, helping by his quick understanding of a situation almost before Leaver had unwillingly pictured it, he had the whole story. It was almost precisely the story he had guessed,--an old story, repeated by many such sufferers from overwork and heavy responsibility, but new to each in its entirety of torture, even to this man, who, still in his youthful prime, had himself heard many such a tale from the unhappy lips of his patients, yet to whom his own case seemed unique in its suffering and hopelessness.

The recital culminated in an incident so painful to the subject of it that he could recount it only in the barest outlines. His listener, however, by the power of his experience and his sympathy, could fill in every detail. A day had come, some six weeks before, when Leaver, though thoroughly worn out by severe and long continued strain, had attempted to operate. The case was an important one, the issue doubtful. Friends of the patient had insisted that no one else should take the eminent young surgeon's place, and, although he had had more than one inner warning, in recent operations, that his nerve was not what it had been, his pride had bid him see the thing through. He had given himself an energizing hypodermic,--he had never done that before,--and had gone into it. There had come a terrible moment.... Leaver's lips grew white as he tried to tell it.

He felt his friend's warm, firm hand upon his own as he faltered.

"Steady, old fellow," said Burns's quiet voice. "We've got this nearly over. You'll be better afterward."