“I’ve had a few of those, too,” King acknowledged.

“I’ll wager you have.  Well, among a certain class of people there seems to be an idea that you can’t show real sympathy without telling the victim that he’s looking very ill, and that you have known several such cases which didn’t recover.  I have one little woman on my list who would have been well long ago if she hadn’t had so many loving friends to impress her with the idea that her case was desperate.  I talk Dutch to such people now and then, when I get the chance, but it doesn’t do much good.  Sometimes I get so thundering mad I can’t stand it, and then I rip out something that makes me a lasting enemy.”

“You get some comfort out of the explosion, anyhow,” King commented, with a glance at the strong profile beside him.  “Besides, you may do more good than you know.  Anybody who had had a good dressing down from you once wouldn’t be likely to forget it in a hurry.”

Burns laughed at this, as they stopped in front of a house.  King had a half-hour wait while his friend was inside.  The car stood in heavy shade, and he was very comfortable.  He took a letter from his pocket as he sat, a letter which looked as if it had been many times unfolded, and read it once more, his face very sober as his eyes followed the familiar lines: 

     DEAR MR. KING: 

I was very, very sorry to go away without seeing you to say good-bye after our interesting correspondence.  Mrs. Burns and I had such a pleasant visit with your mother, in your absence, that we felt rewarded for our call, and it was good to know that you could be out, yet of course we were very disappointed.  I do hope that all will go well with you, and that very rapidly, for I can guess how eager you are to be at work.

Of course once I am off on my travels I shall have no time for letters.  No, that isn’t quite frank, is it?  Well, I will be truthful and say honestly that I am sure it is not best that I should keep on writing.  I am glad if the letters have, as you say, helped you through the worst of the siege; they surely have helped me.  But now—­our ways part.  Sometime I may give you a hail from somewhere—­when I am lonely and longing to know how you get on.  And sometime I may be back at my old home.  But wherever I am I shall never forget you, Jordan King, for you have put something into my life which was not there before and I am the better for it.  As for you—­your life will not be one whit the less big and efficient for this trying experience; it will be bigger, I think, and finer.  I am glad, glad I have known you.

     ANNE LINTON.