DR. BRYDEN was tired. The strain of one of his hardest days had left him with scarcely energy to get up and go home. His assistants had gone, but still he sat at his desk in the laboratory, his gaze wandering idly from incubator to sterilizer and away over the horizon of flasks, jars and test-tubes. He was not really thinking any more. His mind was a blank, save for stray trivialities. He wondered whether that rug in his bachelor apartment didn't need mending. He recalled that Mrs. Flanagan, his "charring lady," had neglected to wash his windows that week.

      Dr. Bryden was rather tall, slender, and decidedly good-looking, despite the fact that he wore glasses and his brown hair was thin over his temples. Somehow these things seemed to fit him. They added to the refinement of a face at once delicate, nervous and strongly intellectual. Perhaps he was thirty-five years old, but you would not have doubted him had he claimed forty-five; certainly not if it occurred to you that this man had, already, by his experiments and deductions advanced the science of bacteriology beyond the grayest veterans of London, Paris and Vienna, that he held, as it were, the "farthest north" record in those undiscovered regions where the deadliest enemies of man muster for the never-ceasing invasion.

      At last he passed his hand across his brow and rose wearily, locked the laboratory on its armies of friends and foes, and took his way down spiral stairs and straight stairs, along halls, past wards where the white cots ranged monotonous in their very cleanliness. An unending fight it was — and against what odds!

      Suddenly he became conscious of an atmosphere of excitement, orderly and suppressed, but none the less tense. An interne and several nurses were gathered around a cot near the door in the accident ward. Probably a new case. That was nothing. It was the event of each hour, as if men did not have enough diseases without adding to their ills by heedlessness and violence. Dr. Bryden could never have explained why he turned into the ward and walked up to the cot that held the new patient. The others fell back respectfully as he came.

      The man was a young Irishman, or Irish-American, evidently a laborer, with a decent, frank face and a big, sturdy frame.

      "What is it, Doctor? asked Bryden.

      "Attempted suicide," said the interne. "Pretty stiff attempt, too. A big dose of rough-on-rats — too big, luckily — and a pistol shot left side just below the sixth rib. Tried for the heart, I suppose, but a little off on his anatomy. Doesn't seem to have hit anything important."

      The man stirred restlessly and groaned.

      "Ah! let us alone!"

      "Hasn't even been unconscious," said the interne. "He'll probably be around in a couple of weeks. Tough breed."

      A call drew the younger doctor aside, the nurses turned to their duties, and Bryden found himself alone looking down at the young giant in the cot. He was wondering what had driven such a splendid specimen of primitive manhood to such an act — a man, too, of a race that is not prone to self-destruction. He caught the patient's eyes, as he twisted slightly in pain, and was conscious of a somber gloom in their expression.

      "We'll get you out all right, my boy," said Bryden cheerfully. Then he saw that the fellow was actually scowling at him. He took his pulse, half mechanically, and found it hammering away harder than in most well men and not so very much faster either.

      "If it doesn't hurt you to talk, would you mind telling me what made you do this?" he asked.

      There was no answer, and Bryden flushed, conscious of the sheer curiosity that had prompted the question. "I beg pardon," he added. "We ask as a matter of course, but it doesn't go any further. Perhaps you'll tell me about it some other day when you're feeling better."

      "It's a gurl, and I ain't goin' to get no betther. If I do, I'll get worst again. It's only puttin' it up to me for another try ye are." The words blurted out, grim and defiant.

      Bryden smiled. "Girls" had always been out of his line, and that one of these should stir that particular type of man to so determined a longing for death struck him as especially absurd. The abnormality of the whole performance, the inadequacy of the cause acting upon the medium to the effect interested him professionally. Surely it couldn't be the whole story, so Bryden probed again.

      "What's your name?"

      "Flynn. Dennis Flynn, sor."

      "Why kill yourself? That's a pretty poor business for a grown man — and a good Catholic, too;" this for a chance shot with possibly tonic influence.

      "Ah! what's the good of livin'," muttered the other. "Sure I couldn't ate an' I couldn't slape an' I couldn't worrk, sor. Whin a man can't do thim he's betther dead."

      "Just because a girl wouldn't have you?"

      "Sure."

      "Nonsense! You'll get over that."

      "I will not, thin."

      "Queer," pondered Bryden, as he walked home. Naturally enough his scientific mind formulated the proposition. First, disappointment and probably a measure of hurt pride. These were purely mental. Specific symptoms: inability to eat, sleep and work. No, the thing didn't balance. Unpleasant experience, sure enough, but not sufficient cause when you considered how every element of race, religion, temperament and physique fought against it. Must be pathological conditions back of it all. When Dr. Bryden appeared next morning at the hospital it was with a well-defined purpose in his mind. To his inquiry about Flynn's case, the interne answered in routine fashion:

      "Pulse, irregular and accelerated but very strong. Temperature, two degrees above normal. General physical condition, good; but mentally rotten. Glum, surly, didn't want to get well. Fixed intention to repeat attempt if he did."

      Bryden nodded.

      "Must have been pretty well down physically before he tried it. Some other cause?" he suggested.

      The interne shook his head.

      "No sign of it," he said. "I never saw a sounder specimen."

      Bryden was thinking.

      "Would it do any harm, Doctor, to let me have a sample of his blood?"

      "Not in the least."

      So Dr. Bryden went to his laboratory with a few drops from the veins of Mr. Dennis Flynn, attempted suicide, and the interne smiled when he thought of the tendency of specialists to revert to type.

      All that day, all the next, Bryden worked with microscope and slides. At first he worked casually, but soon with deeper interest and closer attention. There were important experiments pending in other lines, but when this assistant or that came to him with reports or for directions, they noted an absent-mindedness in his replies that was, at least, unusual.

      It was on the evening of the second day, when the Medical Society gave its reception to the famous Dr. Siebert, of Vienna, and Bryden presided. When the function was over, it was his office to escort their distinguished guest to his hotel.

      "Doctor," asked Bryden, as they lounged back in the cab, "have you ever happened to run across green diplococci that will multiply at a temperature several degrees above 70 centigrade?"

      The great Viennese drew his brows together over his big round spectacles.

      "Yess, I haf found them," he said; "but they are notting. They are much more often in the blood of the healthy, but not always. I haf examined the blood of many healthy subjects, but these double bacteria were but in fourteen and one-half per cent."

      "What are they? The green can't be chlorophyl?"

      "I know not, but I know that they are not pathogenic. There is not the chlorophyl in the saprophytic or parasitic bacteria I haf found. These are different and it may be: also the temperature — that is unique, but to them I haf paid no attention for they do not harm."

      Bryden felt like maintaining that in bacteriology nothing is "nothing," but argument with the guest was not well. It was more courteous to sit at his feet, and, after all, it was only Dr. Siebert's observations that he wanted — not necessarily his illumination.

      Ten days had passed. Dr. Bryden looked even thinner and more careworn than usual, yet there was in his manner an undertone of triumphant satisfaction. His assistants had been left to themselves in their work or had been compelled to be content with scanty and vague instructions. Young Dr. Slade had whispered to young Dr. Cary that the chief seemed to be getting some weird kind of anti-toxin out of plants — at least he was going for it as if it were an anti-toxin. Maybe, though, he was just running something else through such media. And Dr. Cary, with the speculative attitude inseparable from the very young in a highly speculative field, had ventured the idea that he had often thought something big might come of investigations in that direction. Why not? when one considered the curative properties in many herbs — how they make up so much of materia medica? It was all strange and nebulous to be sure, but why not? It would only be applying the new principles to a broader field of organisms. Why not inoculate a cinchona tree as well as a guinea pig?

      "He's tried a lot of them in there," said Slade, with a motion of his head toward the inner laboratory. "Now it's catnip."

      "Why not?" persisted Cary defiantly. "I don't know what he's after, but like enough he does," and they went out together deep in discussion.

      Cary was right in his guess. Bryden knew what he was after. That no one else did was not remarkable or necessary, for Bryden was a power in the hospital. Therefore no interne or nurse or orderly was in the least surprised when directions came that he was to have the Flynn case. Neither was there regret, for the big Irishman had become a most bothersome problem. The effects of the rough-on-rats had disappeared long ago and his wound was well progressed toward healing. His temperature, however, was still above normal and his mental condition was most perplexing. He gloomed the whole ward and made no secret of his purpose to repeat his attempt and make a good job of it next time. There were windows to be guarded, and, then, too, how could they discharge a man who gloried in a fixed intention to get as high as he could in the world, which in New York is pretty high, and then spread himself over a ten-foot square of sidewalk. There seemed nothing for it but to hand him over to the police before he could walk, and so it was with much relief they all gathered around his cot one night and, partly by persuasion, partly by a show of force, helped Dr. Bryden jab a hypodermic into his body. The why or what did not interest them much. Perhaps it was just a sedative to keep him quiet. That alone would be worth while.

      When, next morning, Mr. Dennis Flynn's temperature had gone down to a fraction above normal and his crude intellect was suffused with a moderate degree of resignation, they wondered; and when, after two more injections of the "sedative" at two-day intervals, he announced to his nurse that gurls might go to the divil for all him, that young woman experienced a sense of relief that even the impoliteness of the sentiment could not mar.

      Later, Mr. Flynn returned to the docks and his bale-hook with a cheerfulness that led Miss Mary Grady to comment bitterly on masculine inconstancy. Perhaps the suicidal effort had softened her to kinder intentions, if these might be inferred from a remark to the effect that "What did Flynn think she was, to be afther havin' him an' him askin' her only twict."

      As for Dr. Bryden, he kept his counsel in the matter for six months. Then he talked to young Dr. Cary, who regarded him very much as a dog regards his master, which is about the best example we have of what should be a man's attitude toward God. It was late one afternoon when Bryden spoke, and every one else had gone home.

      "Do you recall the Flynn case?" he asked.

      Dr. Cary did recall it very well.

      "Had you any notion of what I was doing?"

      Dr. Cary's notions were vague but tended toward the commonplace: sedatives and thereabouts.

      Bryden smiled.

      "I don't know whether I ought to tell even you just what I've done," he said reflectively.

      "It's safe," said Cary with a look that carried much more than the words.

      "Yes, it's safe," went on Bryden; "but I don't believe there's another man living whom I could tell and keep my reputation for sanity."

      Cary said nothing, which was the best thing he could have said, and Bryden eyed him half quizzically.

      "Has it ever occurred to you that there was anything pathological in the condition called being in love?"

      "I've never thought especially."

      "Necessary evil?"

      Cary smiled.

      "Well, it isn't," said Bryden. "I've found the microbe and I've found the anti-toxin."

      Cary stopped smiling.

      "It was the Flynn case that first put me on the track. There was a young Irish-American, Catholic, soundest kind of sound physique, no elaborate nervous development that goes with overmentality; and yet the man had no use for life just because one particular girl had turned him down. There were minor pathological symptoms — pulse, temperature, appetite — but the inadequate depression was the main thing. Anyhow, I worked on those lines. I considered the homogeniety of it all with what we see around us every day to a greater or less degree, and, to make a long story short, I stumbled on the truth and I cured him. I don't say I produced immunity, because the attraction of man toward woman is not pathological. It's the delusion that any particular woman, and she, like enough, the least attractive of his acquaintance, is the only one, and that deep-seated misery is the consequent of her unresponsiveness. To the criticism that one case proves nothing, I only want to add that I've had the opportunity to test my anti-toxin — a very simple vegetable product — on eight other persons, seven men and one woman — none of them so far advanced as Flynn, but very clearly defined cases — and with absolutely unvarying results."

      There was a look in Dr. Cary's eyes that meant wonder, admiration, complete acquiescence in the conclusions — and something else not so easy to define.

      "As I told you," pursued Bryden, "I rather blundered on the anti-toxin. I know it's right, but I don't know yet quite why it's right. Therefore I won't tell you any more till I can give you the thing scientifically. At present I have only a pretty well-fixed suspicion of the truth."

      Cary nodded comprehensively.

      "How are you getting on with the sugar tests?" asked his chief, and the other, being an admirably trained subordinate and a friend as well, launched uncomplaining into the details of sundry acid and alkali reactions in the dextrose, lactose, saccharose and half a dozen other tubes that filled the rack on his table.

      Dr. Bryden left the laboratory much later than usual that night and walked up toward the avenue with head bowed in thought. He was far from city streets with their sights and sounds — too far for the mind to be when the body needs all the mind's alertness for its safety. The bray of the big touring car, as it swung round the corner, brought its warning all too late, and he was hurled against the curb, stunned and bleeding.

      Later — he did not know how much later — he woke up and surveyed his surroundings with slowly waking consciousness and remembrance. They were all new to him: a luxurious room, a bed with carvings and coverlet that told of refinement, probably wealth, a nurse — he knew that uniform at least — and a very pretty face with golden hair crinkling around it that seemed even prettier for the look of sympathy and concern in the blue eyes. Dr. Bryden was trained to habits of accurate observation, and the habit did not forsake him for a mere rap on the head and a bad scalp wound. The blue eyes came over and looked down at him.

      "How are you feeling?"

      "Better. All right, I guess. Where am I?"

      A flush of embarrassment tinted the girl's face.

      "Why, you're here — home," she said. "I mean our home. It was all Dick's carelessness, and we didn't know who you were or where you lived. I didn't want to take you to a hospital, so we just brought you here and sent for a nurse and our doctor — Dr. Fuller — and he knew you and fixed you up and says you'll be about in two or three days; and, oh, I'm so sorry, Dr. Bryden!"

      Bryden looked at her, and, for the life of him, he could not feel very sorry. Only he disapproved of "Dick," but more on general principles than on the score of that gentleman's carelessness.

      "You're very good, but you shouldn't have done it," he said. "I'm used to hospitals, you know, and they're pretty decent places. It was my fault. A man has no business to walk around New York streets with his mind somewhere else. I'm afraid I've given you lots of trouble."

      "Oh, it was the only thing we could do —" she began, and then the nurse suggested that perhaps the patient had better not talk, and the vision vanished — simply vanished.

      Dr. Bryden, however, was unaccustomed to yield to nursely authority. He beckoned the young woman with the cap and cuffs.

      "Who are they?" he asked.

      "The Sturmleys, Riverside Drive."

      "Oh!" said Bryden, "the steel people? Who's Dick?"

      "Miss Ethel's brother."

      Bryden felt more resigned, gradually adapting himself, so he pondered, to the situation.

      "I suppose it doesn't amount to anything?" he asked.

      The nurse shook her head.

      "Dr. Fuller thinks not. No fracture or concussion, just a scalp wound."

      "That's all right," and he submitted to her ministrations and soon went peacefully to sleep.

      Then followed two days of the best care and pleasantest attention he had ever experienced. It included several short visits from his fairy god-sister — very short ones, for she certainly was good to look at, quite tonic in her properties, he told her, and she had laughed and blushed.

      "You see, Doctor, we poor automobilists have to be as nice as we can to our victims to discount the chances of being sued for damages."

      Then Bryden laughed.

      On the morning of the third day he was up, none the worse, he felt, save for a shaved patch and a few stitches in his scalp. He was perfectly fit to go to his apartments, and the care of his servant would fill all his needs. Dr. Fuller quite agreed with his prognosis. Fuller was a good man, he felt, but hardly sympathetic enough for a general practitioner. Errors on the side of overcaution were, at least, safe ones. Well, he could not impose himself longer on the hospitality of strangers, and so, after protests on their part that he knew could be but formal and perfunctory, the automobile and the penitent Dick landed him carefully at his home. That night Dr. Bryden sat up later than was usual for him, and smoked several pipes beyond his quota; both of which he knew were unwise. Neither did he sleep especially well, which might have been expected. That the following day, however, should be disturbed by the constant intrusion of blue eyes and golden hair was, of course, absurd, and that, on the next day again, when he insisted on going back to his work, the same intrusion should interfere with the coherence and continuity of his mental processes was past a joke. A sudden light burst upon him, and he viewed it scientifically after his custom.

      That there was any reason why a trifling accident and the obsession on the part of an attractive young woman that her brother's partial responsibility laid upon her an obligation to a rather unusual act of kindness should fill his thoughts with that young woman's personality to the exclusion of vitally important matters, was distinctly irrational. That his whole acquaintance with her was confined to a total of say an hour's conversation cut up into three or four interviews, and that his knowledge of her was limited to a realization that she was pretty and a belief that she was impulsively kind-hearted, made the case stronger.

      On the other hand, the fact that he had been exposed for the last six months to a newly discovered infection with the virulence of which he was unfamiliar offered an explanation of the phenomena, which, as a man of science, he could not ignore. It was humiliating, in a way; something on the lines of sea-sickness or mumps from a subjective standpoint; something he must conceal, as far as possible, from others. To himself he admitted frankly that the symptoms were well defined and the history of exposure complete. Therefore his diagnosis was honest and conclusive. He was in love with Ethel Sturmley. The only redeeming feature of it all was that he held the remedy, a sure one, in his own hands. He would use it — just so soon as he got one or two important matters off his mind. In view of the established efficiency of his specific, he could safely wait, and, after all, he had now the opportunity most valued by an investigator — the chance to study the action of a new treatment of a newly discovered disease at first hand. Therefore he wanted his mind clear from all disturbing elements. Besides, if he let the case run and the toxin establish itself in his system, the results from a scientific standpoint would be much more satisfactory.

      Something less than a week served to satisfy all his requirements. The laboratory work cleared up beautifully and his own symptoms had become so pronounced that his diagnosis was established beyond a doubt. The face and personality of Ethel Sturmley held possession of every moment not supremely absorbed, and contended even for those. Nothing but the sternest exercise of will power had kept him from calling, and, once, he had even found himself guilty of going out of his way two blocks, for the extremely youthful satisfaction of walking by her house. The time had come to set the remedy to its benevolent and clarifying work.

      He had dined that night at home. Now he sat by his table, his arm bared for the first injection of the anti-toxin. This was the moment he had looked forward to, the crowning test of what he felt would be the greatest, the most revolutionary discovery of an epoch. He toyed almost lovingly with the little syringe. Then he laid it down and looked at his watch. Was it, he reflected, the best time for the experiment? Would not the moment of retiring for the night be better? It was several hours yet before he would feel like bed, and as for sleep, never was he further from it. Then it occurred to him that there had been something of a slight in his failure to call at the house on Riverside Drive, if only to pay his acknowledgments for a kindness and hospitality as unusual as they were courteous. He had not cultivated the social side of life much — his work was too absorbing for that, and yet this was no excuse for boorishness. He rose determinedly. The thing must be done and it had better be done now. It was cowardly to wait until he had fenced himself with immunity; in fact, there seemed something positively repulsive about the syringe, as it lay on the table with its healing contents. Besides, it was always at hand and bed time was surely the best hour.

      To dress was a short matter and, as he went out into the night, the sense of satisfaction born of duty to be fulfilled, dwelt pleasantly with him.

 

      "I had begun to believe you had quite forgotten us, Doctor. Did we give you so unpleasant a two days that you preferred to?" So she greeted him as she came into the room.

      Bryden protested, laughing. What excuses or apologies he made he never quite remembered, but they were accepted with easy good breeding, and he fell into a vein of light talk of which he had never imagined himself capable, much less master. Chaff, nonsense, badinage — truly there was something about this young woman that put no acquaintance at all upon the footing of a friendship of years. New to himself, very different from the serious scientist, was the Dr. Bryden who chatted easily, fairly scintillated, and it was her inspiration and subtle sympathy that brought it out. He was at his social best, because he was supremely at his ease, sure of appreciation and comprehension, than which no certainty is more pleasing.

      "I shall see you soon again, I hope," she said, as he bade her good-night. "Really, I was beginning to wonder when Dick would get the papers in the damage suit. That would have been too bad after all my efforts."

      "Why Dick?" asked Bryden.

      "Oh! because he was playing chauffeur when we ran you down. Goodness! You wouldn't make it a family suit?"

      "No, not a family suit," he said slowly; "but I'm afraid you don't realize just how seriously I was damaged and against whom my suit would have to be brought."

      As he spoke he was conscious of the abruptness of it all; that there was in his voice a note foreign to mere repartee. Of course she would take it as repartee, though, if only to save herself embarrassment. For a moment she said nothing. She looked at him, and Bryden saw the color rise slowly in her face. Surely she was too much mistress of herself to be at a loss for an easy turning of his gaucherie!

      "I think, Dr. Bryden," she said at last, "that you ought to win any suit you may bring."

      A moment more and he was out in the street, his brain whirling at the thought of what her words might mean. She had spoken slowly, seriously, and she had not looked at him when she spoke. Surely she had understood his wild speech; surely she could have turned it had she wished. She had not turned it: therefore she did not wish; and her whole manner! How could he believe she cared for him? Yet why not? He had cared for her on as short an acquaintance.

      The explanation of it all lay ready at his hand, but he put it aside impatiently, and, when he gained his rooms, he threw his hat, perhaps by chance, over the syringe that lay on the table, and went to bed. If he remembered his purpose of two hours ago his actions showed no signs of recollection.

      Dr. Bryden awoke, haggard, from a sleepless night, a night that seemed all one dream. He was himself again; he had breakfasted and had reached the laboratory. Now he could reflect sanely, for he knew, at least, that love was not madness. There were many things to be thought of; yet why was it he could only think of the new problem that had come into his life? His work, his old ambitions and purposes seemed far from him. This alone showed how necessary was the cure he intended. Ethel Sturmley was all that was charming and lovable in woman, but she was a type furthest removed from the one he should marry, the type calculated to aid and inspire him in the work he owed to humanity. This girl would sway him always and her lure would be toward the frivolities, the lighter sides of life. Until the night before, he had never dreamed that his nature had in it such possibilities; and he knew, too, that he had done well at the game — that, with her, he could not but do well. Never mind. It was all foreign to his career and it must stop.

      Evening came again and, after a short search, he found his syringe. That alone was unprecedented — that he should have to search for the least article connected with his work. Now he sat viewing it, still hesitating to make the plunge. He thought of her as she had seemed when he left her the night before. Why had she received his jest in such a way? Could it be that she, too — cared? How cautiously he avoided the phrase, "was infected," even in his thoughts? If she did care had he the right as a man to cure himself, when the opportunity to cure her could never be given him? He would never know what she felt or how deeply. Of course she would recover from a mere passing fancy — if it existed. "Passing fancy," "recovery" — the ideas grated.

      Suddenly he stood up, deliberately unscrewed the syringe and washed out the instrument. He must learn the truth whatever happened. An hour later he stood before her in her drawing-room.

      "I have come," he said, "to plead my suit."

      "To plead?" Her voice was low, a little tremulous. She sat with her hands clasped in her lap.

      "Yes, to plead. Don't you remember? I know, now — many things that study could never teach me. I know what is worth while — what I must win to make my life worth having. You have taught me that — the greatest of all secrets."

      "I have taught you?"

      "Yes, me. Why not? What is science? one of the little things we grope for blindly in dark places, when we need only to open our eyes to see the great good that God holds up before them. Have I learned too late? That is why I speak, perhaps too soon — before you know me — yourself. Don't you understand how I must tell you that I love you?"

"IF YOU HAD LEARNED IT VERY LONG AGO, DEAREST, YOU MIGHT NEVER HAVE WAITED FOR ME."

      "Too late?" she murmured dreamily; but, as she spoke, she seemed drawn by some irresistible force into his arms, and then: "If you had learned it very long ago, dearest, you might never have waited for me."

 

      It was Dr. Cary who found Bryden the next day, sitting before a charred heap of paper in a brass bowl. There was a strange odor in the private laboratory, and half a dozen newly-washed test tubes lay in the sink. Dr. Cary's look was an interrogation.

      "Only a lot of theoretical stuff that doesn't work out right," said Bryden hastily; and then, with a rather defiant look at his assistant: "Doctor, I am going to marry Miss Sturmley next month."

      Cary wrung his hand warmly.

      "I can't tell you how sincerely I congratulate you," he said.

      Time and again during the day, as Dr. Cary worked over his tubes and flasks, there was an odd little smile on his face; but if Dr. Bryden noticed it, he said nothing.

(THE END)