was the man of the omnibus—the man with the haunting, deep-set eyes. Unnoticed, she watched them sitting on a bench by the pond, the nurse droning aloud from a book, the man sagging listlessly, plainly hearing nothing and seeing nothing. The picture set Sheila O’Leary shuddering. If it was a case of ’phobia, God help the poor man with Saunders coupled to his nerves! Cumbersome, big-hearted, and hopelessly dull, Saunders was incapable of nursing with tactful insight a nerve-racked man. In the whole wide realm of disease there seemed nothing more tragic to Sheila than a victim[Pg 19] of ’phobia. It turned normal men and women into pitiful children, afraid of the dark, groping out for the hand to reassure them, to put heart and courage back in them again—the hand that nine cases out of ten never reaches them in time.

[Pg 19]

With an impulsive toss of her head, Sheila O’Leary swung about in her tracks. She would break her own bargain for this once. She would go to Miss Max and ask to be put on the case. Here was a soul sick unto death with a fear of something, and Saunders was nursing it! What did it matter if it was a man or a dog, as long as she could get into the dark after him and show him the way out! Her resolve held to the point of branching paths, and there she stopped to consider again.

Peter’s eyes were on the swans; there was nothing to the general droop of the shoulders, the thrust-forward bend of the neck, the hollowing of the smooth-shaven cheeks, and the graying of the hair above the temples to write him other than an average overworked or habitually harassed business man here for rest and treatment. If Sheila was mistaken—if there was no abnormal mental condition[Pg 20] back of it all, no legitimate reason for not holding fast to the compact she had made three years before with herself to leave men—young, old, or middle-aged—out of her profession, what a fool she would feel! She balanced the paths and her judgment for a second, then decided in favor of the bargain. So Peter was left to the ministrations of Saunders.

[Pg 20]

That night the unexpected happened, unexpected as far as the sanitarium, the superintendent of nurses, and Sheila O’Leary were concerned. How unexpected it was to Peter depends largely on whether it was the result of a decision on his part to stop coaxing existence—or a desire to escape permanently from Saunders—or merely an accident. However, Sheila O’Leary was called in the middle of the night, when she was sleeping so soundly that it took the combined efforts of the 

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