“I hope you can—­indeed I do.  And of course—­anything I can do—­”

He nodded.  “I’ll leave that to you.  Consult—­not your head alone, but—­your heart!”

And he let her go, smiling at her evident confusion of mind.  But when left alone he sighed again.

“He needs a woman like my Ellen,—­that would be a drug of a higher potency.  But—­he can’t have that—­he can’t have that!  I must do the next best thing.”

And he went on his way, studying it out.

That evening he took his wife into his confidence.  He did not tell her the whole story,—­it was not his to tell.  But he made her acquainted with the fact that Leaver had had a severe nervous shock and that the thing to be overcome was his own distrust of himself, the thing to be recovered was his entire self-command.

“I have insisted on his staying as long as he can be content,” Burns explained.  “I had your consent to that, I know?”

“Of course, Red.  You knew that.”

“In my enthusiasm I went a step further, without realizing that I had not consulted you.  I asked Amy Mathewson to stay with us too, as a member of the family.  I asked her cooperation as a woman, as well as a nurse, and to have that it seemed to me necessary to have her here, even after he is up and able to look after his own wants.  How will you feel about that?”

He looked straight into her eyes.  They were sitting upon a small side porch, in the late June evening.  He had come in from a visit to a nearby patient, and, finding her upon the porch, had thrown himself upon the cushion at her feet, his head against her knee.  Now, he turned and looked up at her, and she could see his expression clearly in the moonlight.

“I don’t believe I quite understand yet,” she said.  “What is it that you want Amy to do for him, ‘as a woman’?  Read to him, and walk with him, and be a sort of comrade?”

“Precisely that—­and a bit more.”

“Can you prescribe that sort of thing, and make sure that it will work out?  He may not care for it.”

“I want him to have a woman’s companionship; it’s what he needs, I firmly believe.  It must be a certain sort of woman—­the kind who will be good for his nerves, gently stimulating, not exacting.  One of the brilliant society women he knows wouldn’t do at all.  The ideal kind would be—­your own kind.  But he can’t have that.”  He spoke so decidedly that she smiled, though he did not see it.  “It seems to me that Amy, if she puts her heart into it, can give him just what he needs.  Remember he’s a sick man, and will continue to be a sick man for some time after he’s walking about our streets and climbing our hills.”

“Yes, I’m afraid he will be.  And you think he will accept Amy’s companionship, after he is walking about, as a part of his medicine?  Shall you insist on her being with him, or is she to wait to be invited to read to him and walk with him?”