Burns turned his head and touched his lips to the hand which had laid itself against his cheek.

“Perhaps, when he can’t find a woman.  As a power conductor she is the only, original, copper wire!”

* * * * *

The curiosity which James Macauley had freely expressed as to the probable degree of friendship between Leaver and Amy Mathewson, developed by months of close association, was, with him and with others, not unnatural.  But, in Ellen’s case, the desire to know just how much the situation had meant to Amy herself, was a result of her increasingly warm affection for a young woman of character and personal attractiveness, mingled with a sense of her own and her husband’s responsibility in bringing together two people who might be expected to emerge from the encounter not a little affected by it.

On the morning after John Leaver’s departure, Ellen, standing at a window, found herself watching with more than ordinary intentness the face of Amy as she came up the walk to the house.  Lest Leaver should realize to what an extent his presence had disturbed the regular routine of Burns’s office, Amy had not been allowed to resume her position according to the old regime, but had spent only a portion of her time there, more as a guest of the house might assume certain duties than as a regularly hired assistant would attend to them.  This was, therefore, the first time, since Leaver had left the confinement in his room, that Amy Mathewson had appeared in the office in her old role, announced by the donning of her uniform.

“I certainly don’t see any unhappiness there,” said Ellen to herself, watching Amy as she stooped to pick up an early fallen scarlet leaf upon the lawn.  She fastened it upon the severe whiteness of her attire, then came on to the house with an alert step, as if she approached work she looked forward to with zest.  Her colour was more vivid than it had been last June, when first she began to live the outdoor life with her patient, her eyes were brighter, her whole personality seemed somehow more significant.  Ellen had noted in her these signs of enriched life many times before during these weeks; but the fact that Amy’s aspect, on the day after the departure of her comrade of the summer, seemed to have suffered no change, but that her whole air, as she came to her old task, was that of one who hastens to a congenial appointment, gave to Ellen a distinct sense of relief from an anxiety she had suffered from time to time throughout the whole experience.

Burns had gone away early, summoned by an insistent call, and the office was empty.  Knowing this, Ellen went in to greet her friend.  There could be no other term, now, for the whole-hearted bond between the two.

“Isn’t it glorious, this touch of frost in the air?” Amy came in smiling, her cheeks bright with the sting of the early October morning.  “And to-day—­to-day, at last, I am free to go to work as I like.  I don’t believe Dr. Burns has sent out a bill for three months.  He would go bankrupt before he would tell a man what he owed him.”