after the work until I'm around again."

But Dick evaded the direct issue thus opened and followed another
line of thought.

"Of course you understand," he observed, after a renewal of his
restless pacing, "that I've got to tell her my situation first. I
don't need to tell you that I funk doing it, but it's got to be done."

"Don't be a fool," David said querulously. "You'll set a lot of
women cackling, and what they don't know they'll invent. I know
'em."

"Only herself and her family."

"Why?"

"Because they have a right to know it."

But when he saw David formulating a further protest he dropped the
subject.

"I'll not do it until we've gone into it together," he promised.
"There's plenty of time. You settle down now and get ready for
sleep."

When the nurse came in at eleven o'clock she found Dick gone and
David, very still, with his face to the wall.

It was the end of May before David began to move about his upper