you."

She said these words in her old bright, trustful way. The thought of
my helplessness to justify such trust smote me sorely; but I said
nothing then to undeceive her,--how could I?--and we made haste
together to the bedside of the injured child.

I saw at a glance that the child was in a bad case. Halt was there,
and Dr. Gazell; they were consulting gloomily. The father, haggard
with his first bereavement, seemed to have accepted the second as a
foregone conclusion; he sat with his face in his hands, beside the
little fellow's bed. The boy called for his mother at intervals. A
nurse hung about weeping. It was a dismal scene; there was not a spark
of hope, or energy, or fight in the whole room. I cried out
immoderately that it was enough to kill the well, and protested against
the management of the case with the ardent conviction to which my old
patient was so used, and in which she believed more thoroughly than I
did myself. "They are giving the wrong remedy," I hotly said. "This
surgical fever could be controlled,--the boy need not die. But he
will! You may as well make up your mind to it, Mrs. Faith. Gazell
doesn't understand the little fellow's constitution, and Halt doesn't
understand anything."

Now it was that, as I had expected, the mother turned upon me with all
a mother's hopeless and heart-breaking want of logic. Surely, I, and
only I, could save the boy. Why, I had always taken care of Charley!
Was it possible that I could stand by and see Charley _die_? _She_
should not have died herself if I had been there. She depended upon me
to find some way--there must be a way. She never thought I was the
kind of a man to be so changed by--by what had happened.

I used to be so full of hope and vigour, and so inventive in a
sick-room. It was not reasonable! It was not right! It was not
possible that, just because I was a spirit, I could not control the
minds or bodies of those live men who were so inferior to me. Why, she
thought I could control _any_body. She thought I could conquer
_any_thing.

"I don't understand it, Doctor," she said, with something like
reproach. "You don't seem to be able to do as much--you don't even
know as much as _I_ do, now. And you know what a sick and helpless
little woman I've always been,--how ignorant, beside you! I thought
you were so wise, so strong, so great. Where has it all gone to,
Doctor? What has become of your wisdom and your power? Can't