CHAPTER VI
BROKEN STEEL WIRES
"But I can't stay here," John Leaver protested, a few days afterward. He
was still in bed, much against his will, but not, as he was forced to
admit, against his judgment, when he allowed it consideration. "I can't
impose on Mrs. Burns's and your kindness like this. I shall soon be fit
for travel, and then--"
"Would you mind listening to me?" R.P. Burns, M.D., sat comfortably back
in a large willow chair, by the bedside, and crossed one leg over the
other in a fashion indicative of an intention to settle down to it and
have it out. "Just let me state the case to you, and try to look at it
from the outside. Of course that's a difficult thing to do, when it
happens to be your own case, but you have a judicial mind, and you can
do the trick, if anybody can."
Leaver was silent. He lay staring out of the open window beside which his
bed had been drawn, his thin cheek showing gaunt hollows, his eyes heavy
with unrest. All the scents and sounds of June were pouring in at the
three windows of the room; a tangle of rose vines looked in at him from
this nearest one. Just before Amy Mathewson had left him, a few minutes
ago, for her afternoon rest, she had brought him one wonderful bloom,
the queen, it seemed, of all the roses of that June. It lay upon the
window-sill, now, within reach of his hand.
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