's smile appeared mistily
for a moment, and then quivered away.

There was silence again in the cabin, while the man turned his
thoughtful gaze back to the fire, which had now turned to glowing orange
embers. A far-off look, alien to his keen, masterful face crept into it.
Finally he seemed to shake off his new mood, and spoke with a queer
laugh.

"I told you on the train that I was the victim of an uncanny
premonition. I guess that Horatio was right about there being many
things outside the ken of our limited philosophy. What psychic whisper
from a world whose existence we men of 'common sense'"--he spoke the
words sarcastically--"are loath to credit; what inspiration, born of the
memory of that story of the case of the Bentley Moors' child in New
York, which I told her in words of one syllable six months ago, was it
that brought the light of truth to this girl's mind, when the village
doctor utterly failed to catch so much as a glimmer of it?"

"Then you think, doctor ...?" began Miss Merriman.

"My diagnosis coincides with Smiles',--a tumorous growth on the brain,
probably upon the third left frontal convolution ... right here," he
said in explanation, as he touched his forehead between the left eyebrow
and the hair. "Rose, you have done excellently. Now we, too, will do
what we can, and we shall need your help in full measure to-night. I
know that it is going to be bitterly hard for you, perhaps the hardest
thing that you will ever be called upon to do in all your life; you've
got to be a woman, and a brave one. I'd spare you if I could, but...."

"But I don't want to be spared, Donald," she interrupted, eagerly.

"I know, and I trust you more than I could any grown-up woman here in
the mountains. It's hardly necessary to tell you again, that a nurse is
a soldier, and must be not only brave, but obedient. If we decide to ...
to go ahead I will be, not your friend, but your superior officer for a
while, and, if my orders seem harsh and even cruel, you must not
hesitate, or feel hurt. You understand that, don't you, dear?"

"Yes, doctor. I understand."

She spoke bravely, but her voice trembled a little.

"Good. Before I make my final examination, Miss Merriman and I have got
to change our clothes. She will use your room and I the loft; but first
let us bring Lou's bed out here by the fire."

It was done.

"Now," he continued, "while we are getting ready, there are a number of
things which you have got to