"But I will talk about it, Edith. I want to know--and you might just as well tell me in the first place, and not hang back and hesitate,"

protested the doctor, with all the irritability of a naturally strong man who finds himself so unaccountably weak in his convalescence.

"What's the trouble? Hasn't that--er--fool-improvement business worked out? Well, I didn't think it would!"

Edith Thayer laughed softly.

"On the contrary, it's working beautifully. Wait till you see her. She's a dear--a very charming woman. She's developed wonderfully. But along with it all has come to her a very deep and genuine, and rather curious, humility, together with a pride, the chief aim of which is to avoid anything like the position in which she found herself as the mortifying, distress-causing wife of Burke Denby."

"Humph!" commented the doctor.

"That Burke doesn't love her, she is thoroughly convinced. To go to him now, tacitly asking to be taken back, she feels to be impossible. She has no notion of going where she isn't wanted; and she feels very sure she _isn't_ wanted by either Burke or his father. Of course the longer it runs, and the longer she stays away, the harder it seems for her to make herself known."

"Oh, but this _can't_ go on forever," protested Frank Gleason again, restlessly. "I'll see Burke. As soon as I'm on my feet again I shall run up there."

"But you've given your promise not to tell, remember."

"Yes, yes, I know. I shan't tell, of course. But I can bring back something, I'm sure, that will--will cause this stubborn young woman to change her mind."

"I doubt it. Helen says she's not ready to go back yet, anyway."

"Not sufficiently 'improved,' I suppose," laughed the doctor, a little grimly.

"Perhaps. Then, too, she has other plans all made."

"Oh, she has!"

"Yes. She's going abroad. Do you remember Angie Reynolds?--Angie Ried, you know--married Ned Reynolds."

"Yes. Nice girl!"

"Well, they're going abroad for some years--some business for the firm, I believe. Anyway, Ned will have to be months at a time in different cities, and Angie and little Gladys are going with him. They have asked Helen and Betty to go, too; and Helen has agreed to go."

"And leave you?"

At the indignant expression on her brother's face, Edith Thayer laughed merrily.

"But, my dear Frank, I thought you were just threatening to _get_ Helen to leave me!" she challenged.

"So I was," retorted the doctor, nothing daunted. "But it was to get her to go home, where she belonged; not on any wild-goose chase like this abroad business. What does she want?--to be presented at court? Maybe she thinks that's going to do the job!"

"Oh, come, come, Frank, now you're sarcastic!" Mrs. Thayer's voice was earnest, though her eyes were twinkling. "It isn't a wild-goose chase a bit. It's a very sensible plan. In the first place, it takes Helen out of the country--which is wise, if she's still going to try to keep her whereabouts a secret from Burke; for eventually some one, somewhere, would see her--some one who knew her face. She can't always live so secluded a life as she has these past three years, of course,--we have spent the greater share of that time at the beach here, coming early and staying late.

"But that isn't all. Angie has taken a great fancy to both Helen and Dorothy Elizabeth, and she likes to have Gladys with them. The children are the same age--about five, you know--and great cronies. Angie is taking Helen as a sort of companion-governess. Her duties will be light and congenial. Both the children will be in her charge, and their treatment and advantages will be identical. There will be a nursery governess under her, and she herself will be much with Angie, which will be invaluable to her, in many ways. And, by the way, Frank, the fact that a woman like Angie Reynolds is taking her for a traveling companion shows, more conclusively than anything else could, how greatly improved Helen is--what a really charming woman she has come to be. But it is a splendid chance for her, certainly, and especially for Betty--her whole life centers now in Betty--and I urged her taking it. At first she demurred, on account of leaving me; but I succeeded in convincing her that it was altogether too good an opportunity to lose."

"Opportunity, indeed! When does she go?"

"The last of next month."

"Oh, that's all right, then. I shall see Burke long before that." The doctor settled back in his chair with a relieved sigh.

His sister eyed him with a disturbed frown.

"Frank, dear, you can't do anything," she ventured at last. "Didn't I tell you she wasn't ready to go back?"

"But she'll have to go--some time."

"Perhaps. But wait. I'm not going to say another word now, nor let you.

Wait till you see her--and you shall see her in a day or two--just as soon as you are strong enough. But not another word now." And to make sure that he obeyed, Mrs. Thayer rose laughingly and left the room.

It was four days later that Frank Gleason for the first time ventured downstairs and out into the warm sunshine on the south veranda. Hearing a child's gleeful laugh and a woman's gently remonstrative voice,--a voice that he thought he recognized,--he walked the length of the veranda and rounded the corner.

His slippered feet made no sound, so quite unheralded he came upon the woman and the little girl on the wide veranda steps. Neither one saw him, and he stopped short at the corner, his eyes alight with sudden admiration.

Frank Gleason thought he had never seen a more lovely little girl.

Blue-eyed, golden-haired, and rosy-cheeked, she was the typical child-beautiful of picture and romance. A-tiptoe on the topmost step she was reaching one dimpled hand for a gorgeous red geranium blooming in a pot decorating the bal.u.s.trade. In the other hand, tightly clutched, was another gorgeous blossom, sadly crushed and broken. She was laughing gleefully. Near her, but not attempting to touch her, was a woman the doctor recognized at once. It was Helen--but Helen with a subtle difference of face, eyes, hair, dress, and manner that was at once illuminating but baffling.

"Betty, dear," she was saying gently, "no, no! Mother said not to pick the flowers."

The child turned roguish, willful eyes.

"But I wants to pick 'em."

"Mother can't let you, dear. And see, they are so much prettier growing!"

The small red lips pouted. The little curly head gave a vigorous shake.

"But I wants 'em to grow in my hands--so," insisted a threateningly tearful voice, as the tightly clutched flower was thrust forward for inspection.

"But they won't grow there, darling. See!--this one is all crumpled and broken now. It can't even lift its poor little head. Come, we don't want the rest to be like that, do we? Come! Come away with me."

The young eyes grew mutinous.

"I wants 'em to grow in my hand," insisted the red lips again.

"But mother doesn't." There was a resolute note of decision in the quiet voice now; but suddenly it grew wonderfully soft and vibrant. "And daddy wouldn't, either, dearie. Only think how sorry daddy would be to see that poor little flower in Betty's hand!"

As if in response to a potent something in her mother's voice, Betty's eyes grew roundly serious.

"Why--would daddy--be sorry?"

"Because daddy loves all beautiful things, and he wants them to stay beautiful. And this poor little flower in Betty's hand won't be beautiful much longer, I fear. It is all broken and crushed; and daddy--"

With a sudden sense of guilt, as if trespa.s.sing on holy ground, the doctor strode forward noisily.

"So this is Dorothy Elizabeth and her mother--" he began gayly; but he could get no further.

Helen Denby turned with a joyous cry and an eagerly extended hand.

"Oh, Dr. Gleason, I'm so glad! You _are_ better, aren't you? I'm so glad to see you!"