“He is my husband,” she suddenly announced with startling conviction.  “I remember his putting the ring on my finger.  I remember his saying ‘You’ve got to wear it.  It is the only thing to do.  You must.’  I remember what he looks like—­almost.  He is tall and he has a scar on his cheek —­here.”  She patted her own face feverishly to show the spot.  “He made me wear the ring and I didn’t want to.  I didn’t want to.  Oh, don’t let me remember.  Don’t let me,” she implored.

At this point the doctor took things in his own hands.  The child was obviously beginning to remember.  The shock of the man’s coming had snapped something in her brain.  They must not let things come back too disastrously fast.  He packed her off to bed with a stiff dose of nerve quieting medicine.  Margery sat with her arms tight around the forlorn little sufferer and presently the dreary sobbing ceased and the girl drifted off to exhausted sleep, nature’s kindest panacea for all human ills.

Meanwhile the doctor sought out Larry.  He found him in the office apparently completely absorbed in the perusal of a medical magazine.  He looked up quickly as the older man entered and answered the question in his eyes giving assurance that Ruth was quite all right, would soon be asleep if she was not already.  He made no mention of that disconcerting flash of memory.  Sufficient unto the day was the trouble thereof.

He came over and laid a kindly, encouraging hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Keep up heart a little longer,” he said.  “By tomorrow you will know where you stand and that will be something, no matter which way it turns.”

“I should say it would,” groaned Larry.  “I’m sick of being in a labyrinth.  Even the worst can’t be much worse than not knowing.  You don’t know how tough it has been, Uncle Phil.”

“I can make a fairly good guess at it, my boy.  I’ve seen and understood more than you realize perhaps.  You have put up a magnificent fight, son.  And you are the boy who once told me he was a coward.”

“I am afraid I still am, Uncle Phil,—­sometimes.”

“We all are, Larry, cowards in our hearts, but that does not matter so long as the yellow streak doesn’t get into our acts.  You have not let that happen I think.”

Larry was silent.  He was remembering that night when Ruth had come to him.  He wasn’t very proud of the memory.  He wondered if his uncle guessed how near the yellow streak had come to the surface on that occasion.

“I don’t deserve as much credit as you are giving me,” he said humbly.  “There have been times—­at least one time—­” He broke off.

“You would have been less than a man if there had not been, Larry.  I understand all that.  But on the whole you know and I know that you have a clean slate to show.  Don’t let yourself get morbid worrying about things you might have done and didn’t.  They don’t worry me.  They needn’t worry you.  Forget it.”