alone in the room, yet she was keenly observant of the men, for she felt
that developments were taking place.

"What is the matter with your patient upstairs, Doctor?" the colonel began
his cross-examination. Doctor Fleming raised his eyebrows.

"He's had nothing to eat to speak of for six weeks, at an altitude"--

"Yes; we know all that. But he's twenty-four years old. They made an easy
trip back, and he has been here a week, nearly. He's not as strong as he
was when they brought him in, is he?"

"That was excitement. You have to allow for the reaction. He has had a
shock to the entire system,--nerves, digestion,--must give him time. Very
nervous temperament too much controlled."

"Make it as you like. But I'm disappointed in his rallying powers, unless
you are keeping something back. A boy with the grit to do what he did, and
stand it as he did--why isn't he standing it better now?"

"We are all suffering from reaction, I think," said Mrs. Creve
diplomatically; "and we show it by making too much of little things. Tom,
we oughtn't to keep the doctor up here talking nonsense. He wants to go to
bed."

"_I_'m not talking nonsense," said the doctor. "I should be if I pretended
there was anything mysterious about that boy's case upstairs. He has had a
tremendous experience, say what you will; and it's pulled him down
nervously, and every other way. He isn't ready or able to talk of it yet.
And he knows as soon as he comes down there'll be forty people waiting to