He groaned under his breath.

"No man could live up to that, Sidney."

"No. I see that now. But that's the way I cared. Now I know that I

didn't care for you, really, at all. I built up an idol and worshiped it. I

always saw you through a sort of haze. You were operating, with everybody

standing by, saying how wonderful it was. Or you were coming to the wards,

and everything was excitement, getting ready for you. I blame myself

terribly. But you see, don't you? It isn't that I think you are wicked.

It's just that I never loved the real you, because I never knew you."

When he remained silent, she made an attempt to justify herself.

"I'd known very few men," she said. "I came into the hospital, and for a

time life seemed very terrible. There were wickednesses I had never heard

of, and somebody always paying for them. I was always asking, Why? Why?

Then you would come in, and a lot of them you cured and sent out. You gave

them their chance, don't you see? Until I knew about Carlotta, you always

meant that to me. You were like K.--always helping."

The room was very silent. In the nurses' parlor, a few feet down the

corridor, the nurses were at prayers.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want," read the Head, her voice calm

with the quiet of twilight and the end of the day.

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still

waters."

The nurses read the response a little slowly, as if they, too, were weary.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death--"

The man in the chair stirred. He had come through the valley of the

shadow, and for what? He was very bitter. He said to himself savagely

that they would better have let him die. "You say you never loved me

because you never knew me. I'm not a rotter, Sidney. Isn't it possible

that the man you, cared about, who--who did his best by people and all

that--is the real me?"

She gazed at him thoughtfully. He missed something out of her eyes, the

sort of luminous, wistful look with which she had been wont to survey his

greatness. Measured by this new glance, so clear, so appraising, he sank

back into his chair.

"The man who did his best is quite real. You have always done the best in

your work; you always will. But the other is a part of you too, Max. Even

if I cared, I would not dare to run the risk."




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