At last he got his keys from his trousers pocket and padded softly down the stairs and into his office, where he drew the shade and turned on the lights.  Around him was the accumulated professional impedimenta of many years; the old-fashioned surgical chair; the corner closet which had been designed for china, and which held his instruments; the bookcase; his framed diplomas on the wall, their signatures faded, their seals a little dingy; his desk, from which Dick had removed the old ledger which had held those erratic records from which, when he needed money, he had been wont—­and reluctant —­to make out his bills.

Through an open door was Dick’s office, a neat place of shining linoleum and small glass stands, highly modern and business-like.  Beyond the office and opening from it was his laboratory, which had been the fruit closet once, and into which Dick on occasion retired to fuss with slides and tubes and stains and a microscope.

Sometimes he called David in, and talked at length and with enthusiasm about such human interest things as the Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, and the Friedlander bacillus.  The older man would listen, but his eyes were oftener on Dick than on the microscope or the slide.

David went to the bookcase and got down a large book, much worn, and carried it to his desk.

An hour or so later he heard footsteps in the hall and closed the book hastily.  It was Lucy, a wadded dressing gown over her nightdress and a glass of hot milk in her hand.

“You drink this and come to bed, David,” she said peremptorily.  “I’ve been lying upstairs waiting for you to come up, and I need some sleep.”

He had no sort of hope that she would not notice the book.

“I just got to thinking things over, Lucy,” he explained, his tone apologetic.  “There’s no use pretending I’m not worried.  I am.”

“Well, it’s in God’s hands,” she said, quite simply.  “Take this up and drink it slowly.  If you gulp it down it makes a lump in your stomach.”

She stood by while he replaced the book in the bookcase and put out the lights.  Then in the darkness she preceded him up the stairs.

“You’d better take the milk yourself, Lucy,” he said.  “You’re not sleeping either.”

“I’ve had some.  Good-night.”

He went in and sitting on the side of his bed sipped at his milk.  Lucy was right.  It was not in their hands.  He had the feeling all at once of having relinquished a great burden.  He crawled into bed and was almost instantly asleep.

So sometime after midnight found David sleeping, and Lucy on her knees.  It found Elizabeth dreamlessly unconscious in her white bed, and Dick Livingstone asleep also, but in his clothing, and in a chair by the window.  In the light from a street lamp his face showed lines of fatigue and nervous stress, lines only revealed when during sleep a man casts off the mask with which he protects his soul against even friendly eyes.