there as if nothing were the
matter."

"Coolness?" she inquired, in a quiet voice. "Or cruelty?"

"Cruelty?" I echoed, aghast. "Sebastian cruel! Oh, Nurse Wade, what an
idea! Why, he has spent his whole life in striving against all odds to
alleviate pain. He is the apostle of philanthropy!"

"Of philanthropy, or of science? To alleviate pain, or to learn the
whole truth about the human body?"

"Come, come, now," I cried. "You analyse too far. I will not let even
YOU put me out of conceit with Sebastian." (Her face flushed at
that "even you"; I almost fancied she began to like me.) "He is the
enthusiasm of my life; just consider how much he has done for humanity!"

She looked me through searchingly. "I will not destroy your illusion,"
she answered, after a pause. "It is a noble and generous one. But is it
not largely based on an ascetic face, long white hair, and a moustache
that hides the cruel corners of the mouth? For the corners ARE cruel.
Some day, I will show you them. Cut off the long hair, shave the
grizzled moustache--and what then will remain?" She drew a profile
hastily. "Just that," and she showed it me. 'Twas a face like
Robespierre's, grown harder and older and lined with observation. I
recognised that it was in fact the essence of Sebastian.

Next day, as it turned out, the Professor himself insisted upon testing
lethodyne in his own person. All Nat's strove to dissuade him. "Your
life is so precious, sir--the advancement of science!" But the Professor
was adamantine.

"Science can only be advanced if men of science will take their lives in
their hands," he answered, sternly. "Besides, Nurse Wade has tried. Am
I to lag behind a woman in my devotion to the cause of physiological
knowledge?"

"Let him try," Hilda Wade murmured to me. "He is quite right. It will
not hurt him. I have told him already he has just the proper temperament
to stand the drug. Such people are rare: HE is one of them."

We administered the dose, trembling. Sebastian took it like a man, and
dropped off instantly, for lethodyne is at least as instantaneous in its
operation as nitrous oxide.

He lay long asleep. Hilda and I watched him.

After he had lain for some minutes senseless, like a log, on the couch
where we had placed him, Hilda stooped over him quietly and lifted up
the ends of the grizzled moustache. Then she pointed one accusing
finger at his lips. "I told you so," she murmured, with a note of
demonstration.