"Sh! Child--don't talk! It's all right. You're getting better. I've been with you every day. You're in my house now. You'll soon be yourself again."

She smiled wanly, put her delicate hand on his and pressed it gratefully.

"I understand. You thank me--you say that I am good to you. But I'm not. This is my life. I heal the sick because I must. I love this battle royal with Death. He beats me sometimes--but I never quit. I'm always tramping on his trail, and I've won this fight!"

The calm brown eyes held her in a spell and she smiled again.

"Sleep now," he said soothingly. "Sleep day and night. Just wake to take a little food--that's all and Nature will do the rest."

He stroked her hand gently until her eyelids closed.

Two days later Jim clung to the Doctor's hand and insisted on talking.

"Better wait a little longer, boy," the physician answered kindly.

"You're not out of the woods yet----"

"I can't wait--Doc----" Jim pleaded. "I've just got to ask you something."

"All right. You can talk five minutes."

"My wife, Doc, how is she? You took her to your house, John told me.

She'll get well?"

"Yes. She's rapidly recovering now."

"What does she say about me?"

"She thinks you're dead."

"You haven't told her?"

"No."

"Why?"

"She had all she could stand----"

Jim stared in silence.

"You think she'd be sorry to know I am alive?" he asked slowly.

"It would be a great shock."

The steel blue eyes slowly filled with tears.

"God! I am rotten, ain't I?"

"There's no doubt about that, my son," was the firm answer.

"Why did you fight so hard to save me--I wonder?"

"An old feud between Death and me."

Jim suddenly seized the Doctor's hand.

"Say, you can't fool me--you're a good one, Doc. You've been a friend to me and you've got to help now--you've just got to. You're the only one on earth who can. You've a great big heart and you can't go back on a fellow that's down and out. Give me a chance! You will--won't you?"

The hot fingers gripped the Doctor's hand with pleading tenderness.

The brown eyes searched Jim's soul.

"If you can show me it's worth while----"

The fingers tightened their grip in silence.

"Just give me a chance, Doc," he said at last, "and I'll show you! I ain't never had a chance to really know what was right and what was wrong. If I'd a lived here with my old mother she'd have told me. You know what it is to be a stray dog on the streets of New York? Even then, I'd have kept straight if I hadn't been robbed by a lawyer and his pal. I didn't know what I was doin' till that night here in this cabin--honest to God, I didn't----"

He paused for breath and a tear stole down his cheek. He fought for control of his emotions and went on in low tones.

"I didn't know--till I saw my old mother creepin' on me in the shadows with that big knife gleamin' in her hand! I tried to stop her and I couldn't. I tried to yell and strangled with blood. I saw the flames of hell in her eyes and I had kindled them there--God! I never knew until that minute! I'm broken and bruised lyin' on the rocks now in the lowest pit---- Give me your hand, Doc! You're my only friend--I'm goin'

straight from now on--so help me God!"

He paused again for breath and sought the actor's eyes.

"You'll stand by me, won't you?"

A friendly grip closed on the trembling fingers.

"Yes--I'll help you--if I can."

CHAPTER XXV. THE MOTHER

Mary was resting in the chair beneath the southern windows of the sun-parlor of the Doctor's bungalow. He had built his home of logs cut from the mountainside. Its rooms were supplied with every modern convenience and comfort. Clear spring water from the cliff above poured into the cypress tank constructed beneath the roof. An overflow pipe sent a sparkling, bubbling and laughing through the lawn, refreshing the wild flowers planted along its edges.

The view from the window looking south was one of ravishing beauty and endless charm. Perched on a rising spur of the Black Mountain the house commanded a view of the long valley of the Swannanoa opening at the lower end into the wide, sunlit sweep of the lower hills around Asheville. Upward the balsam-crowned peaks towered among the clouds and stars.

No two hours of the day were just alike. Sometimes the sun was raining showers of diamonds on the trembling tree-tops of the valleys while the blackest storm clouds hung in ominous menace around Mount Mitchell and the Cat-tail. Sometimes it was raining in the valley--the rain cloud a level sheet of gray cloth stretching from the foot of the lawn across to the crags beyond, while the sun wrapped the little bungalow in a warm, white mantle.

Mary had never tired of this enchanted world during the days of her convalescence. The Doctor, with firm will, had lifted every care from her mind. She had gratefully submitted to his orders, and asked no questions.

She began to wonder vaguely about his life and people and why he had left the world in which a man of his culture and power must have moved, to bury himself in these mountain wilds. She wondered if he had married, separated from his wife and chosen the life of a recluse. He volunteered no information about himself.

When not attending his patients he spent his hours in the greenhouse among his flowers or in the long library extension of the bungalow.

More than five thousand volumes filled the solid shelves. A massive oak table, ten feet in length and four feet wide, stood in the center of the room, always generously piled with books, magazines and papers. At the end of this table he kept the row of books which bore immediately on the theme he was studying.