e said, "I could not fall asleep."

There were two things I could do--give her an opiate, and strengthen her
a little with sleep beforehand, or administer chloroform to her before
the operation. I hesitated between the two. A natural sleep would have
done her a world of good, but there was a gleam in her eyes, and a
feverish throb in her pulse, which gave me no hope of that. Perhaps the
chloroform, if she had no objection to it, would be the best.

"Did you ever take chloroform?" I asked.

"No: I never needed it," she answered.

"Should you object to taking it?"

"Any thing." she replied, passively. "I will do any thing you wish."

I went back into the kitchen and opened the portmanteau my father had
put up for me. Splints and bandages were there in abundance, enough to
set half the arms in the island, but neither chloroform nor any thing in
the shape of an opiate could I find. I might almost as well have come to
Sark altogether unprepared for my case.

What could I do? There are no shops in Sark, and drugs of any kind were
out of the question. There was not a chance of getting what I needed to
calm and soothe a highly-nervous and finely-strung temperament like my
patient's. A few minutes ago I had hesitated about using chloroform. Now
I would have given half of every thing I possessed in the world for an
ounce of it.

I said nothing to Tardif, who was watching me with his deep-set eyes, as
closely as if I were meddling with some precious possession of his own.
I laid the bundle of splints and rolls of linen down on the table with a
professional air, while I was inwardly execrating my father's
negligence. I emptied the portmanteau in the hope of finding some small
phial or box. Any opiate would have been welcome to me, that would have
dulled the overwrought nerves of the girl in the room within. But the
practice of using any thing of the kind was not in favor with us
generally in the Channel Islands, and my father had probably concluded
that a Sark woman would not consent to use them. At any rate, there they
were not.

I stood for a few minutes, deep in thought. The daylight was going, and
it was useless to waste time; yet I found myself shrinking oddly from
the duty before me. Tardif could not help but see my chagrin and
hesitation.

"Doctor," he cried, "she is not going to die?"

"No, no," I answered, calling back my wandering thoughts and energies;
"there is not the smallest danger of that. I must go and