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 circumstance 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 prone.

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.