dismay.

"I can't!" she cried; "Oh, I can't! It is like knives going through me!
I can't move!"

"Ah, but you must, my dear. It has to be done; and the braver you are,
the sooner it will be over. You are bound to suffer the first few
times, but it would be ten times worse to allow the joint to stiffen.
Now be brave, and try to take just two steps with me! I will support
you on one side, and--" Nurse looked round questioningly--"Mr Harold
will take the other. You can lean all your weight on us. We won't let
you fall."

Harold stepped forward without a word and put his strong arm under hers,
and, as he did so, Evie raised her eyes to his with a look which those
who saw it never forgot--a look such as might have been given by an
animal caught in a snare from which it was powerless to escape. Rhoda
told herself savagely that Harold was a brute to persist in the face of
that dumb appeal, but he did not quail even when the sob rose to a cry,
and a trembling plea for mercy. The two steps were taken, and
henceforth, for weeks to come, the nightmare of repeated effort weighed
upon the spirits of the household. At eleven o'clock, after tea, after
dinner--three times a day--was the inexorable programme repeated, in
spite of prayers and protestations. Mrs Chester's theory was that it
was brutal to torture the child, and that if she were to be lame, for
pity's sake let her be lame in peace. Rhoda suffered agonies of remorse
and passionate revolts against the mystery of pain, but the nurse and
her assistant never showed a sign of wavering. As a rule, Evie made a
gallant attempt to control her sufferings, but there were occasions when
even her fortitude gave was, as, on one afternoon, when, after taking a
certain number of steps, she was informed that still more must be
attempted. She was powerless in the hands that held her, but when she
collapsed into helpless sobbings on the sofa, Rhoda turned on her
brother with furious indignation:

"You are a _brute_, Harold! You have no heart! How dare you do it--how
_dare_ you make her suffer so!"

He did not answer, but turned his head aside, and stared steadily out of
the window. Rhoda glared at him with smarting eyes, and suddenly saw
something which put a check on her excitement. Harold's profile was
turned toward her, and the light showed great drops of moisture standing
upon the brow, and rolling slowly down the cheek. She realised, with a
pang, that once again sh