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 been at the very heart of life, had loved, been loved, suffered, given birth, and grown strong through exercise. Miriam envied her the gruelling experience she was going through. She blushed to think how incompetent she herself would be in Louise's place, and how prudish; but incompetence and prudishness could be outgrown, and she longed to outgrow them.

She resented the fact that Keble seemed not to notice the degree of strain on Louise, the dark rings under her eyes, the drawn mouth. Louise was partly responsible for his failure to see, for whenever he called at the slip she forced herself to be bright and facetious. But any woman would have seen through Louise's brightness, and Keble as a man far less obtuse than most, ought to have seen through it, ought not to have wrung their hearts by his casual manner of calling out, in a recent leave taking, "Don't overdo it, Weedgie; we mustn't have you breaking down."

A night finally came when the little doctor announced that the crisis was passed, that the patient would recover. Only then did he admit that he had almost despaired. Had it not been for Louise's vigilance, Dare would not have survived a week, for he