"I am sorry to hear it."

"Even yet his condition causes keen anxiety to his mother."

A little change passed over her sensitive face,--could it have been a flicker of amusement? The suspicion helped to restore his nerve. Who was this young woman after all, that she should dare to smile at Rachel Overman's anxiety for her boy? People who knew Mrs. Overman were accustomed to treat even her whims with respect. He continued a thought more stiffly.

"His physician, I may say, admits that her fears are justified. He is in an extremely nervous and excitable condition, and it is considered that the best hope for his recovery lies in removing the cause of the mental disturbance which is at the root of his physical overthrow. His unhappiness is sending him into a decline."

She looked at him quizzically. There was no question now about the hidden amusement that brought that gleam into her eyes. And she answered with a rocking, monotonous cadence that flared its mockery in his ears.

"Men have died, and worms have eaten them," she said slowly, "but--not for love."

Burton flushed to the roots of his hair. He knew that he had not been honest in his plea,--that it was for Rachel's sake and not for Philip's (confound the boy!) that he had turned special pleader in the case,--but for heaven's sake, why couldn't the girl have pretended with him for a little while? Couldn't she see that he had to present the best side of his cause?

"I think possibly the matter is more serious than you realize," he said, dropping his eyes. "Philip is a high-strung young man. His disappointment was profound. It has seemingly shattered his ambition and his interest in life."

"Philip is a self-willed young man," she said, in a carefully modulated voice that was so palpable a mimicry of his own that he was torn between a desire to applaud her skill and to box her ears for her impertinence. "He cried for the moon, and when he couldn't have it, he evidently made things uncomfortable for his dear mamma and his self-sacrificing friend. But I believe, speaking under correction, that the best modern authorities, as well as the classic one I have already quoted, agree that the probabilities are highly in favor of a complete recovery,--in time. Don't you agree with me?"

"I am sorry not to be able to do so. In the first place I have been retained as a witness by the other side. 

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