He drew her into his arms, and had his reward.  He had not known she would be so deeply touched, and his heart grew very warm.

“Bless you!” he murmured.  “Do you care so much about seeing those fires banked?  They would never burn you!”

“Care?  Oh, how I care!  But, Red, you haven’t accepted an ’anomalous position.’  It’s a clearly defined one,—­the position of the man who is big enough to take second place, because it is his duty.  And I’m so proud of you—­so proud!  And prouder yet because you’ve controlled that fiery temper.”

“Don’t praise me yet,—­it may break out again.  The test is coming in the next forty-eight hours.”

“You will stand it,—­I know you will.”

“You would put backbone into a feather-bed,” said Red Pepper, with conviction, and they laughed and clung together, in the early dawn.

* * * * *

Two days later Burns came home again as the first light of the morning was breaking over the summer sky.  It had been the third consecutive night which he had spent at the bedside of the patient who would not let him go,—­the patient who, every time his weary eyes lifted, during the long stretches of the night, wanted to rest them upon a halo of coppery red hair against the low-burning light.  The sick man had learned what it meant to feel now and then, in a moment of torture, the pressure of a kind, big hand upon his, and to hear the sound of a quiet, reassuring voice—­"Steady—­steady—­better in a minute!"

As he entered his office his eyes were heavy with his vigils, but his heart was very light.  He looked at a certain old leather chair, into which he had often sunk when he came in at untimely hours, too weary to take another step toward bed.  But now he passed it by and noiselessly crossed the hall into the living-room, where stood the roomy and luxurious couch which Ellen had provided with special thought of hours like these.

He softly opened the windows, to let in the morning breeze and the bird-songs of the early risers outside, then threw himself upon the couch, and almost instantly was sound asleep.

Two hours later, before the household was astir, Ellen came down.  She was in flowing, lacy garments, her hair in freshly braided plaits hanging over her shoulders, her eyes clear and bright with the invigoration of the night’s rest.  As if she had known he would be there, she came straight to her husband’s side, and stood looking down at him with her heart in her eyes.

He looked almost like a big boy, lying there with one arm under his head, the heavy lashes marking the line of the closed eyes, the face unbent from the tenser moulding of waking hours, the whole strong body relaxed into an attitude of careless ease.  Even as she looked, though she had made scarcely a breath of noise, his eyes unclosed.  He was the lightest of sleepers, even when worn out with work.  He lay staring up at her for a minute while she smiled down at him, then he held out his arms.