“And you intend to give it all up—­your career?”

“Well—­if I should, what then?” Suddenly he turned to her abruptly.  “I should not think you would want me to go again.  Do you urge me to go?”

Lloyd made a sudden little gasp, and her hand involuntarily closed upon his as it rested near her on the table.

“Oh, no!” she cried.  “Oh, no, I don’t!  You are right.  It’s not your work now.”

“Well, then,” muttered Bennett as though the question was forever settled.

Lloyd turned to her mail, and one after another slit the envelopes, woman fashion, with a shell hairpin.  But while she was glancing over the contents of her letters Bennett began to stir uneasily in his place.  From time to time he stopped eating and shot a glance at Lloyd from under his frown, noting the crisp, white texture of her gown and waist, the white scarf with its high, tight bands about the neck, the tiny, golden buttons in her cuffs, the sombre, ruddy glow of her cheeks, her dull-blue eyes, and the piles and coils of her bronze-red hair.  Then, abruptly, he said: 

“Adler, you can go.”

Adler saluted and withdrew.

“Whom are your letters from?” Bennett demanded by way of a beginning.

Lloyd replaced the hairpin in her hair, answering: 

“From Dr. Street, from Louise Douglass, and from—­Mr. Campbell.”

“Hum! well, what do they say?  Dr. Street and—­Louise Douglass?”

“Dr. Street asks me to take a very important surgical case as soon as I get through here, ’one of the most important and delicate, as well as one of the most interesting, operations in his professional experience.’  Those are his words.  Louise writes four pages, but she says nothing; just chatters.”

“And Campbell?” Bennett indicated with his chin the third rather voluminous letter at Lloyd’s elbow.  “He seems to have written rather more than four pages.  What does he say?  Does he ‘chatter’ too?”

Lloyd smoothed back her hair from one temple.

“H’m—­no.  He says—­something.  But never mind what he says.  Ward, I must be going back to the City.  You don’t need a nurse any more.”

“What’s that?” Bennett’s frown gathered on the instant, and with a sharp movement of the head that was habitual to him he brought his one good eye to bear upon her.

Lloyd repeated her statement, answering his remonstrance and expostulation with: 

“You are almost perfectly well, and it would not be at all—­discreet for me to stay here an hour longer than absolutely necessary.  I shall go back to-morrow or next day.”

“But, I tell you, I am still very sick.  I’m a poor, miserable, shattered wreck.”

He made a great show of coughing in hollow, lamentable tones.

“Listen to that, and last night I had a high fever, and this morning I had a queer sort of pain about here—­” he vaguely indicated the region of his chest.  “I think I am about to have a relapse.”