Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ What he was thinking about, as he sat by David's bedside, was David's attitude toward that threatened return of his. For David had opposed it, offering a dozen trivial, almost puerile reasons. Had shown indeed, a dogged obstinacy and an irritability that were somehow oddly like fear. David afraid! David, whose life and heart were open books! David, whose eyes never wavered, nor his courage!
“You let well enough alone, Dick,” he had finished. “You've got everything you want. And a medical man can't afford to go gadding about. When people want him they want him.” ”

“ The cabin had been a small and lonely one, with snow-peaks not far above it, and it had been very cold. During the day a woman kept up the fire. Her name was Maggie, and she moved about the cabin like a thin ghost. At night she slept in a lean-to shed and David kept the fire going. A man who seemed to know him well—John Donaldson, he learned, was his name—was Maggie's husband, and every so often he came, about dawn, and brought food and supplies. ”

“ When David recovered sufficiently he would go to Norada, as he had told Elizabeth, and there he would find the Donaldsons, and clear up the things that bothered him. After that.......
He thought of Elizabeth, of her sweetness and sanity. He remembered her at the theater the evening before, lost in its fictitious emotions, its counterfeit drama. He had felt moved to comfort her, when he found her on the verge of tears.
“Just remember, they're only acting,” he had said.
“Yes. But life does do things like that to people.”
“Not often. The theater deals in the dramatic exceptions to life. ”