set her arm at
once, and then she will sleep."

I returned to the room, and raised her as gently and painlessly as I
could, motioning to the old woman to sit beside her on the bed and hold
her steadily. I thought once of calling in Tardif to support her with
his strong frame, but I did not. She moaned, though very softly, when I
moved her, and she tried to smile again as her eyes met mine looking
anxiously at her. That smile made me feel like a child. If she did it
again, I knew my hands would be unsteady, and her pain would be tenfold
greater.

"I would rather you cried out or shouted," I said. "Don't try to control
yourself when I hurt you. You need not be afraid of seeming impatient,
and a loud scream or two would do you good."

But I knew quite well as I spoke that she would never scream aloud.
There was the self-control of culture about her. A woman of the lower
class might shriek and cry, but this girl would try to smile at the
moment when the pain was keenest. The white, round arm under my hands
was cold, and the muscles were soft and unstrung. I felt the ends of the
broken bone grating together as I drew the fragments into their right
places, and the sensation went through and through me. I had set scores
of broken limbs before with no feeling like this, which was so near
unnerving me. But I kept my hands steady, and my attention fixed upon my
work. I felt like two persons--a surgeon who had a simple, scientific
operation to perform, and a mother who feels in her own person every
pang her child has to suffer.

All the time the girl's white face and firmly-set lips lay under my
gaze, with the wide-open, unflinching eyes looking straight at me: a
mournful, silent, appealing face, which betrayed the pain I made her
suffer ten times more than any cries or shrieks could have done. I
thanked God in my heart when it was over, and I could lay her down
again. I smoothed the coarse pillows for her to lie more comfortably
upon them, and I spread my cambric handkerchief in a double fold between
her cheek and the rough linen--too rough for a soft cheek like hers.

"Lie quite still," I said. "Do not stir, but go to sleep as fast as you
can."

She was not smiling now, and she did not speak; but the gleam in her
eyes was growing wilder, and she looked at me with a wandering
expression. If sleep did not come very soon, there would be mischief. I
drew the curtains across the window to shut out the twilight, and
motioned