ose to himself," he used to say, "than to raise good men and
true from the dead, as it were, and return them whole and sound to the
family that depends upon them? Why, I had fifty times rather cure an
honest coal-heaver of a wound in his leg than give ten years more lease
of life to a gouty lord, diseased from top to toe, who expects to find
a month of Carlsbad or Homburg once every year make up for eleven months
of over-eating, over-drinking, vulgar debauchery, and under-thinking."
He had no sympathy with men who lived the lives of swine: his heart was
with the workers.

Of course, Hilda Wade soon suggested that, as an operation was
absolutely necessary, Number Fourteen would be a splendid subject on
whom to test once more the effects of lethodyne. Sebastian, with his
head on one side, surveying the patient, promptly coincided. "Nervous
diathesis," he observed. "Very vivid fancy. Twitches her hands the right
way. Quick pulse, rapid perceptions, no meaningless unrest, but deep
vitality. I don't doubt she'll stand it."

We explained to Number Fourteen the gravity of the case, and also the
tentative character of the operation under lethodyne. At first, she
shrank from taking it. "No, no!" she said; "let me die quietly." But
Hilda, like the Angel of Mercy that she was, whispered in the girl's
ear: "IF it succeeds, you will get quite well, and--you can marry
Arthur."

The patient's dark face flushed crimson.

"Ah! Arthur," she cried. "Dear Arthur! I can bear anything you choose to
do to me--for Arthur!"

"How soon you find these things out!" I cried to Hilda, a few minutes
later. "A mere man would never have thought of that. And who is Arthur?"

"A sailor--on a ship that trades with the South Seas. I hope he is
worthy of her. Fretting over Arthur's absence has aggravated the case.
He is homeward-bound now. She is worrying herself to death for fear she
should not live to say good-bye to him."

"She WILL live to marry him," I answered, with confidence like her own,
"if YOU say she can stand it."

"The lethodyne--oh, yes; THAT'S all right. But the operation itself is
so extremely dangerous; though Dr. Sebastian says he has called in
the best surgeon in London for all such cases. They are rare, he tells
me--and Nielsen has performed on six, three of them successfully."

We gave the girl the drug. She took it, trembling, and went off at once,
holding Hilda's hand, with a pale smile on her face, which persisted
there s