It was not a very gracious speech, but it was a look of pity and not of
anger which shone in her eyes as she turned away from his bedside.

Dr. Ripley had a brother, William, who was assistant surgeon at a
London hospital, and who was down in Hampshire within a few hours of
his hearing of the accident. He raised his brows when he heard the
details.

"What! You are pestered with one of those!" he cried.

"I don't know what I should have done without her."

"I've no doubt she's an excellent nurse."

"She knows her work as well as you or I."

"Speak for yourself, James," said the London man with a sniff. "But
apart from that, you know that the principle of the thing is all wrong."

"You think there is nothing to be said on the other side?"

"Good heavens! do you?"

"Well, I don't know. It struck me during the night that we may have
been a little narrow in our views."

"Nonsense, James. It's all very fine for women to win prizes in the
lecture room, but you know as well as I do that they are no use in an
emergency. Now I warrant that this woman was all nerves when she was
setting your leg. That reminds me that I had better just take a look
at it and see that it is all right."

"I would rather that you did not undo it," said the patient. "I have
her assurance that it is all right."

Brother William was deeply shocked.

"Of course, if a woman's assurance is of more value than the opinion of
the assistant surgeon of a London hospital, there is nothing more to be
said," he remarked.

"I should prefer that you did not touch it," said the patient firmly,
and Dr. William went back to London that evening in a huff.

The lady, who had heard of his coming, was much surprised on learning
his departure.

"We had a difference upon a point of professional etiquette," said Dr.
James, and it was all the explanation he would vouchsafe.

For two long months Dr. Ripley was brought in contact with his rival
every day, and he learned many things which he had not known before.
She was a charming companion, as well as a most assiduous doctor. Her
short presence during the long, weary day was like a flower in a sand
waste. What interested him was precisely what interested her, and she
could meet him at every point upon equal terms. And yet under all her
learning and her firmness ran a sweet, womanly nature, peeping out in
her talk, shining in her greenish eyes, showing itself in a thousand
subtle ways which the dulle