“I won’t get it.  They will teach us how to be careful and sanitary, and take proper precautions, and things like that.  I am going to be very, very careful.  Why, honey, I won’t get it.  But, David, I would rather get it than go away and leave you.  I couldn’t do that.  I should never be happy again if I left you when you were needing me.”

David turned his face to the wall.  “Maybe, dear,” he said very gently, “maybe it would be better if you did go home,—­better for me.  I need perfect rest you know, and we talk and laugh so much and have such good times together.  I don’t know, possibly I might get well faster—­alone.”

For a long moment Carol gazed at him in horror.  “David,” she gasped.  “Don’t say that.  Dear, I will go home if it makes you worse to have me.  I will do anything.  I only want to help you.  But I will be very nice and quiet, like a mouse, and never say a word, and not laugh once, if you take me with you.  David, do I make you feel sicker?  Does my chatter weary you?  I thought I was helping to amuse you.”

“Carol, I can’t lie like that even to send you away from me.  Maybe I ought to, but I can’t.  Why, sweetheart, you are the only thing left in the world.  You are the world to me now.  Dear, I said it for your sake, not for mine, Carol, never for mine.”

Slowly the smiles struggled through the anguish in her face, and she resumed her kissing of his fingers.

“Silly old goose,” she murmured; “big old silly goose.  Just because he’s a preacher he wants to boss all the time.  Can’t boss me.  I won’t be bossed.  I like to boss myself.  I won’t let my beautiful old David go off out there to flirt with the nurses and Indian girls and whoever else is out there.  I should say not.  I’ll stick right along, and whenever a woman turns our way, I’ll shout, ‘Married!  He is mine!’”

[Illustration:  “Silly old goose,” she murmured.]

David laughed at her passionate discussion to herself.

“Besides, I have been learning a lot of things.  I’ve been talking to the doctor privately when you couldn’t hear.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, yes, and we are great friends.  He says if we just live clean, white, sanitary lives, I am safe.  I must keep strong and fat, and the germs can’t get a start.  And he has been telling me lots of nice things to do.  David, I know I can help you.  The doctor said so.  He says I must be happy and gay, and be positively sure you will be well again in time, and I can do you more good than a tonic.  Yes, he said that very thing, Doctor O’Hara did.  Now please beg my pardon, and maybe I’ll forgive you.”

David promptly did, and peace was restored.

A committee of brotherly ministers was sent out from the Presbytery to find how things were going in the little manse in the Heights.  Very gently, very tenderly they made their inquiries of Carol, and Carol answered frankly.