Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-02-03

- ming there had been a consultation;
David had suffered a light stroke, but
there was no paralysis, and the prognoss
was good. For this time, at least, David
had escaped, but there must be no other
time. He was to be kept quiet and free
from worry, his diet was to be carefully
regulated, and with care he still had long
years before him.
David slept, his breathing heavy and
slow. In the morning there would be
nurse, but that night Dick, having sent
Lucy to bed, himself kept watch. On the
walnut bed lay Doctor Dayid's porty fig
ure dimly outlined by the shaded lamp,
and on a chair drawn close sat Dick.
He was wide-awake and very anxious,
but as time went on and untoward
symptoms appeared, as David's sleep SEEM
ed to be more natural, Dicks thoughts
wandered. They went to Elizabeth first,
and then on and on from the starting
point, through the years ahead.
Then his mind turned on himself. How
often in the past ten years it had done that.
He had sat off, with a sort of professional
detachment, and studied his own case.
With the entrance into his world of the
new science of psychoanalysis, he had made
now and then small not very sincere, at
tempts to penetrate the veil of his own I'M
conscious deVising. Not very sincere, for
the mind, he had learned that behind such
conditions as his lay generally, deeply hid
den, the desire to forget And that behind
that there lay acknowledged or not, fear.
''But to forget what?" he used to say to
David, when the first textbooks on the new
science appeared, and he and David were
learning the new Technology, Dick eagerly
and David with contemptuous snorts of de-
rision ITO forget what?"
''You had plenty to forget" David would
stay, stoIidy. You'd had your fathers
death for one thing. And you'd gone pretty
close to the edge of eternity yourself. You'd
fought slngle-handed the worst storm of
ten years. you came out of it with double
pneumonia, and you lay alone in that cabin
about tifty-six hours. Forget. You had
plenty to forget
He had accepted that theory without
question, finally. There seemed, indeed,
nothing to bring to a normal man He felt
normal. He felt, strengthened by love, that
he could face whatever life had to bring,
so long as it also brought Elizabeth.
He had taken his fears to David that
Sunday night and David had scoffed at
them.
"Don't be a fool" he had said. go
ahead and take her, if she'll have you I'd
like to go back to the ranch again, David,
before things go any further"
'Why?"
I'D like to fill the gap. Attempt it
anyhow"
What he was thinking about, as he sat
by Davids bedside, was Davids attitude to-
ward the threatened return of his For Da-
vid had opposed it, offering a dozen trivial,
almost puerile reasons. Had shown, indeed
a dogged obstinacy and an i liability that
were, somehow, oddly like fear. David
afraid David whose life and heart were
open books David, whose eyes never waV-
cred, nor his courage.
"You let we'll enough alone, Dick" he
had said at the end .You've got every
thing you want. And medical man can't
afford to go gadding about. When people
want him they want him"
But he had noticed that David had been
different since. He had taken to following
him with his faded old eyes, had even
spoken once Of retiring and turning all the
work over to him. Was it possible that
David did not want him to go back to Ne
vada? But that would imply
He bent over and felt the sick mans
pulse. 1t was stronger, not so rapid