“We must get all there is of this,” he said.  “I feel as if I could skate fifty miles and back again.  Do you?”

“Indeed I do.  I’ve wanted to get up and run round the block between every two stitches all day.”

“They say the river is good for three miles up.  That will give us just what we want—­a sensation of running away from the earth and all its cares.  And when we get back we’ll be ready for Fieldsy’s stew.”

They found everybody on the river; Charlotte was busy nodding to her friends while the doctor put on her skates.  In a few moments the two were flying up the course.

“Oh, this is great!” exulted Doctor Churchill.  “And this is the first time you’ve been on the ice this winter—­in February!”

“This is fine enough to make up.  I do love it.  It takes out all the puckers.”

“Doesn’t it?  I thought you’d been cultivating puckers to-day the minute I saw you—­or else I interpreted your mood by my own.  Talk about puckers—­and nerves!  Miss Charlotte, I’ve done my first big operation in a certain line to-day.  I mean, in a new line—­an experiment.  It was—­a success.”

She looked up at him, her face full of sympathy.  “Oh, I’m so glad!” she said.

“Are you?  Thank you!  I wanted somebody to be glad—­and I hadn’t anybody.  I had to tell you.  It’s too soon to be absolutely sure, but it promises so well I’m daring to be happy.  It’s the sort of operation in which the worst danger is practically over if the patient gets through the operation itself.  She’s rallied beautifully.  And whatever happens, I’ve proved my point—­that the experiment is feasible.  Some of the men doubted that—­all thought it a big risk.  But I had to take it, and now—­Ah, come on, Miss Charlotte!  Let’s fly!”

Away they went, faster and faster—­long, swinging strokes in perfect unison; two accomplished skaters with one object in view; working off healthy young spirits at a tension.  They did not talk; they saved their breath; they went like the wind itself.

At the farthest extremity of the smooth ice, which ended at a little frost-bound waterfall, they came to a stop.  Churchill looked down at a face like a rose, black eyes that were all alight, and lips that smiled with the fresh happiness of the fine sport.

“I’ve skated at Copenhagen and at St. Petersburg,” he said gaily, “to say nothing of Fresh Pond and Lake Superior and other such home grounds.  But it’s safe to say I never enjoyed a mile of them like that last one.  You—­you were really glad, weren’t you, that it went so well with me to-day?”

“How could I help it, Doctor Churchill?” she answered, earnestly.  Ever since coming out she had been remembering the little revelation his housekeeper had made of his life, and it had touched her deeply to know why he had come to settle in the suburban town instead of in the much more promising city field—­a question which had occurred to her many times since she had known him.