Ernestine was tired, and she believed she would have to admit that she was nervous. She had been working harder, she supposed, than she should, but the further she went the more she saw to do, and something from within was eternally pushing her on.

As she waited, her mind turned to the stories that office must hold.

How much of anxiety and suffering and sorrow and tragedy--and occasional joy--it must know. The mothers who brought children whom others had declared incurable--how tense these moments of waiting must be for them!

The husband and wife who came together to find out whether she would have to have the operation--how many of the crucial moments of life were lived in such places as this! The power in these doctors vested! The power of their voice, their slightest glance, in holding men from the brink of despair! Who could know the human heart better than they? They did not meet the every day men and women well groomed with restraints and pretence. For it was an hour when the soul was stripped bare that the doctor looked in upon it. Men were various things to various people, but to the doctor they came very close to being themselves. Too much was at stake to dissemble here. When phantoms of fear and death took shape in the shadows one sought the doctor--and told the truth.

She had a fancy which moved her then. She saw the men like Dr. Parkman fighting darkness down in the valley, while from the mountain peak adjacent men like Karl turned on, as with mighty search-lights, more, and ever more, of the light. And what were the search-lights for if not to be turned down into the valley?

"What time did you go to bed last night?" he demanded, after they had shaken hands in the inner office.

"Why--did you see the light?" she faltered;--she had made a promise against late hours.

"The light--no; but I see your face now, and that's enough. Was it two--or worse?"

"Just a mere trifle worse. And truly, doctor--I didn't mean to. But don't you know it's hard to stop when you feel just right for a thing? Why, one can't always do things at the proper time," she expostulated.

"No, and one can't always keep an abused nervous system from going to pieces either. Did you ever stop to think of that?"

"But you'll look after the nervous system," she replied ingenuously.

"Now that's where a lot of you make the mistake. I can't do anything at all without the cooperation of common-sense."

"Well I'm intending to be real good from this on," she laughed. "But it is so important that I know everything!"

He laughed then too. "A very destructive notion."

"Tell me," he said, when he had settled himself in his chair in the particular way of settling himself when he intended having a talk with her, "have you been rewarded in all this by any pleasure in it whatsoever? I don't mean," he made clear, antic.i.p.ating her, "just the pleasure of doing something for Karl. But has your work given you any enthusiasm for the thing in itself?"

"Doctor--it has. And that was something I was afraid of. But you should have heard me talking to Mr. Ross the other day when he made one of his patronising remarks about mere science. I believe that when you work hard at almost anything you develop some enthusiasm for it."

"Um--a rather doubtful compliment for science."

"It was rather Beasonish," she laughed. "But you see in the beginning my face was turned the other way."

He gave her one of those concentrated glances then. "And how about that?

Never feel any more like heading the other way?"

She smiled, and the smile seemed to be covering a great deal. "Oh sometimes the perverse side of me feels like turning the other way. There are many sides to us--aren't there? But never mind about that," she hastened. "That is just something between me and myself. I can suppress all insurrections."

There was a pause. She leaned back in the big chair and was resting; he had seen from the first that she was very tired. "No desire to back out?"--he threw that out a little doubtfully.

She sat up straight. She looked, first angry, and then as if she were going to cry. "Doctor--tell me! Am I _that_ unconvincing? Hasn't the winter--"

"This winter," he interrupted gently, "has proved that you knew what you were talking about when you came to me last fall. Could I say more than that? I only asked the question," he explained, "because this is the last chance for retreat."

And then he told her, watching the changing expressions of her responsive face. But at the last there was a timidity, a sort of frightened fluttering.

"But doctor--am I ready? _Can_ I really do it? There is so much I don't know!"

"The consciousness of which is excellent proof of your progress. My idea is this. In any case it is going to be hard at the first. You might go on another year, and of course be in better shape, but I don't know just what Karl would be doing in that year; he's in need of a big rousing up, and as for you, after working the year with him, you'll be a long way ahead of where you would be alone. So it argues itself that way from both standpoints. I made up my mind when I was out the other day that Karl needs just what this is going to give."

"You think he looks badly?" she flew at that, relinquishing all else.

"You think Karl's not well?"

"I didn't mean that. But he needs the hope, the enthusiasm, activity, this is going to give."

"Hasn't he been splendid this winter?" she asked softly, those very deep warm lights in her eyes. "Did you ever see anything like it, doctor?"

"I thought I knew something about courage," he replied shortly, "but Karl makes me think I didn't."

"I don't believe there are many men could turn from big things to smaller ones, and grow bigger instead of smaller," she said, with a very tender pride.

"They say scientists are narrow and bull-headed. Wonder what they would say to this? And there's another thing to remember. We have seen the results of the victories. Only Karl Hubers knows of the fights."

"I know of some of them," said Ernestine, simply.

"Yes," he corrected himself--"you. And before we quite deify Karl we must reckon with you. He could not have done it without you."

"He would not have tried," she said--and the man turned away. That look was not his to see.

When she recalled herself it was with a sense of not having been kind.

Why did she say things like that to Dr. Parkman after Karl had told her--? "And you, doctor," she said in rather timid reparation, "I wonder if you know what you have done for us both?"

"Oh, I haven't counted for much," he said almost curtly. "It would have worked itself out without me." But even as he spoke he was wishing with all his heart that there was some way of showing her what they had meant to him. He did not do it, for a soul which has been long apart grows fearful of sending itself out, fearful of making itself absurd.

They talked it all out then, going at practical things in a very matter-of-fact way. "And now," said the doctor, "I have a suggestion. It is more than a suggestion. It is a request. A little more than a request, even; a--"

"Command?" she smiled at him.

"You know," he began, "how it is with the athletes. Sometimes they become overtrained, which is the worst thing could happen to them. A good trainer never puts overtrained men in the game. Now, my dear enthusiastic friend,"--she was looking at him in that intent way of hers--"I've noticed two or three times that you've about jumped out of your chair at some meaningless noise in the other room. Your eyes tell the story;--oh there are various ways of reading it. You're a little overtrained. Before you tell Karl the great secret I want you to go away by yourself for a couple of weeks and rest."

"You mean that I should leave Karl?" she demanded.

"I do. I want you to have change, rest, and for that matter a little lonesomeness won't be a bad thing. You'll be in just the right mood then to put it all to him when you come back. He'll be in just the right mood to take it."

"Oh, but, doctor--you don't understand! I can't leave Karl. There are things I do for him no one else could do. Why you must remember he's blind!" she concluded, pa.s.sionately.

She was not easy to win, but he stated his case, and one by one met her arguments. Yes--Karl would be lonely. But when she came back he would be so glad to see her that he would be a much better subject for enthusiasm than he was now. She also would be in better mood. "If you tell him now,"

he said, "and he makes some objections, says it can't be done--ten to one, as you are now, you will begin to cry. A nice termination for your whole winter's work! You must go to him just as you came to me in the beginning--overwhelm him, take him whether or no. And you're not right for that now. It's just because I'm bound this thing shall go through, that I insist you do as I say."

"Couldn't Karl go with me?" she asked, quite humbly, her eyes pleading eloquently.

He showed her, kindly, but very decisively, that that would not make the point at all. There followed then but a few final protestations. Where would Karl think she was? What in the world would he think of her--going away and leaving him like that? Who would look after him? What if he needed some help he didn't get? Suppose he grew so lonesome and depressed he just couldn't stand it?

On all of which points he somewhat banteringly rea.s.sured her. Other men had been lonesome now and then, and it had not quite killed them. Beason and Ross were in the house, and there was a good maid, who adored Dr.

Hubers. "As to where he thinks you are, I'll tell him half the truth.

That you are a little nervous and I have prescribed change and rest."

But she would not agree to that. "Karl would worry," she said. "We'll tell him instead that I have to go to New York to see about my picture.

It will be easier for Karl if he thinks it is about my work."