"I'll tell you, girlie," I said, "let us agree that all this has been a
dream of mine. We will say that I have never been in love with you, and
regard you now with profound indifference. It has been that which some
very amazing practitioners are pleased to call an error. Now you will be
able to enjoy happiness. As far as I am concerned I don't suppose it can
make me feel any worse."

"You're a dear good boy, John," she answered. "We shall always be awfully
good friends, and perhaps, some day ... Now you must tell me all your
plans."

"Ladies first," I objected.

"Well, my heart is still in Newfoundland, you know. But I'm going to stay
at least a year in New York. I'm going to work among the poorest and most
unpleasant, because I want to become self-reliant. Then I shall go back
home. Think of a trained nurse let loose in some of those outports! I
should just revel in it. I am an heiress worth five hundred dollars a
year of my own. That would keep a lot of people up there. You see, I have
a theory!"

"Will you be so kind as to share it with me?" I asked.

"Well, ordinary nursing is a humdrum thing" and there are thousands to do
it. It is the same thing with you. Just now, having no practice as
yet, you are working in laboratories with a lot of others; you run around
hospitals--also with a crowd. What do you know about your ability to go
right out and do a man's work, by yourself? That is what counts, to my
mind."