nclusion of which never fails to catch my
breath. But mine is an empirical science. We deal not so much with
weights and measures as with illusive inaccuracies. To be exact is to be
a failure. To reject the unknown is to remain a poor doctor, indeed. The
issue in this case was defined. Either the congestion of the membranes
in the spinal cord was producing a persistent hallucination or else
there was, in fact, something going on behind that wall. Either an
influence was affecting the child from within or an influence was
affecting her from without. I was mad to save her. Even a doctor who
habitually views patients and data cards with the same impersonal regard
may sometimes feel a call to work for love. And I loved that little
child. I meant to exhaust the possibilities. As poor MacMechem had asked
the question, I asked it.

I touched Virginia's hands with the tips of my fingers. Her eyes turned
toward me, and again I was sure that no madness was in them. You, too,
would have said that, awakened from the intermittent coma, the little
thing, though mute and helpless, was none the less still the mistress of
her thoughts.

"You have not asked her?" I inquired of Miss Peters.

The woman, folding her arms, at the same time shook her head solemnly.

"No," she said as if she disapproved.

But I bent over Virginia. "I am the new doctor," I said. "Do you
understand?"

She smiled, and, I tell you, no monster could have resisted that
tenderness.

"What is there?" I whispered, pointing with my free hand.

Her eyes opened as children's eyes will do in the distress of
innocence; her feeble hand moved in mine as a little weak animal might
move. Her face refilled with pain.

"Something is there," she whispered.

"What?"

She shook her head weakly.

The nurse touched my elbow. I thanked her for reminding me of the
chances I was taking with the little girl's quiet. I left instructions;
then, perhaps not wholly at peace with myself, I crept softly down the
stairs. I did not wish an interview with Mrs. Marbury. I did not wish to
see that begging look on her face. I would have been glad to have
escaped Marbury himself.

He was waiting for me. He waited at the bottom of the steps with that
smug financial face of his--a mask through which, in that moment, the
warmth of suffering and love seemed struggling to escape. He was
plucking, from his thin crop, gray hairs that he could ill afford to
lose.

I anticipated his questio