When he returned next day there was a little shadow in the kind eyes.  David lay on the cot, smiling, and Carol stood beside him.

“How do you feel to-day?”

“Oh, just fine,” came the ready answer.

But the shadow in the doctor’s eyes deepened.

“The meanest part of a doctor’s work is handing out death blows to hope,” he said.  “But you two are big enough to take a hard knock without flinching, and I won’t need to beat around the bush.  Mr. Duke, you have tuberculosis.”

David winched a little and Carol clutched his hand spasmodically, yet they smiled quickly, comfortingly into each other’s eyes.

“That does not mean that your life is fanning out, by any means,” continued the doctor in his easy voice.  “We’ve got a grip on the disease now.  You are getting it right at the start and you stand a splendid chance.  Your clean life will help.  Your laughing wife will help.  Your confidence in a Divine Doctor will help.  Everything is on your side.  If you can, I think I should go out west somewhere,—­to New Mexico, or Arizona.  It is low here, and damp,—­lots of people chase the cure here, and find it, but it is easier out there where the air is light and fine and the temperature is even, and where doctors specialize on lungs.”

“Yes, yes, indeed, we shall go right away,” declared Carol feverishly.  “Yes, indeed.”

“Keep on with my treatment while you are here.  And get out as soon as you can.  Stay in bed all the time, and don’t bother with many visitors.  I don’t need to tell you the minor precautions.  You both have brains.  Be sure you use them.  Now, don’t get blue.  You’ve still got plenty to laugh at, Mrs. Duke.  And I give you fair warning, when you quit laughing there’s the end of the fight.  You haven’t any other weapon strong enough to beat the germs.”

It was hard indeed for Carol to see anything to laugh at just that moment, but she smiled, rather wanly, at the doctor when he went away.

There was silence between them for a moment.

At last, she leaned over him and whispered breathlessly, “Maybe it is really a good thing, David.  You did need a vacation, and now you are bound to get it.”

David smiled at her persistent philosophy of optimism.

Again there was silence.  Finally, with an effort he spoke.  “Carol, I—­I could have thanked God for letting us know this two years ago.  Then you would have escaped.”

“David, don’t say that.  Just this minute I was thanking Him in my heart because we didn’t know until we belonged to each other.”

She lifted her lips to him, as she always did when deeply moved, and instinctively he lowered his to meet them.  But before he touched her he stopped, stricken by a bitter thought, and pushed her face away almost roughly.

“Oh, Carol,” he cried, “I can’t.  I can never kiss you again.  I have loved to touch you, always.  I have loved your cool, sweet, powdery skin, and your lips,—­I have always thought of your lips as a crimson bow in a pale pink cloud,—­I—­I have loved to touch you.  I have always adored your face, the look of it as well as the feel of it.  I have loved to kiss you.”