"Have you heard—John, that Margaret Moffatt has broken her engagement to Clyde Huntter?"
"Yes. Where did you hear it?"
"She came—to see me; wanted to know how I was. She was very beautiful and dear. She talked a good deal about that—that——"
"Redheaded nurse?" asked Ledyard.
"Yes. I couldn't quite see any connecting link then, but you know Dick did go to that Swiss village last summer. I fear the party wasn't properly chaperoned, for 'twas there he met—the nurse!"
"It—was!" grunted Ledyard.
"There is something sadly wrong with this broken engagement of Margaret's, but I imagine no one will ever know. Girls are so—so different from what they used to be."
"Yes," but a tone of doubt was in Ledyard's voice. Presently he said: "Since Dick has left, or may leave, the profession, I suppose he'll take to writing. He's always told me that when he could afford to, he'd like to cut the traces and wollop the race with his pen. Many doctors would like to do that. A gag and a chain and ball are not what they're cracked up to be. The pen is mightier than the pill, sometimes, but it often eliminates the butter from the bread."
Helen caught at the only part of this speech that she understood.
"There's the little income I'm living on," she said; "it's Dick's father's. I wish—you'd let me give it to him—now. I am old-fashioned enough to want to live on my husband's money."