l-slag. A big leather easy-chair,
its arms worn with much use, had been pulled into an inviting position
before the fireplace, and the night-light by the desk was burning, as
usual. All that could be expected had been done by the kind-hearted
Cynthia, who comprehended, by signs she knew well and had been watching
for several days, that affairs were going wrong with her employer.

But he needed more than could be given him by things inanimate--needed
it woefully. He came in as a man comes who is not only physically' weary
to the point of exhaustion, but heart sick and sore besides. He dropped
his heavy surgical bags upon the floor by the desk as if he wanted never
to take them up again, pulled off coat and cap and let them fall where
they would, then stumbled blindly over to the big chair and sank into it
with a great sigh, as if he had reached the end of all endeavour.

If it had been physical fatigue alone which had brought him to this pass
he might have dropped asleep where he sat, and waked, after an hour or
two, to drag himself away to bed, like one who had been drugged. For a
short space, indeed, he lay motionless in the chair in the attitude of
one so spent for sleep that he must needs find it in the first place his
body touches. But there are times when the mind will not let the body
rest. And this was one of them.

The scene he had left lately was burning before his tired eyes; the
sounds he had lately heard were beating in his brain. For a week he had
been putting every power he possessed into the attaining of an end for
which it had more than once seemed to him that he would be willing to
sacrifice his own life. He had dared everything, fought every one, had
his own way in spite of every obstacle, believing to the last that he
could win, as he had so often won before, by sheer contempt of danger.
But this time he had failed.

That was all there was of it--he had failed, failed so absolutely, so
humiliatingly, so publicly--this was the way he put it to himself--that
he was in disgrace. He had operated when others advised against
operation and had seemed to succeed, brilliantly and incredibly. Then
the case had begun to go wrong. He had operated a second time--against
all precedent, taking tremendous risks--and had lost.

But this was not the worst. He had lost cases before and had suffered
keenly over them, but not as he was suffering now. In a world of death
some cases must be lost, even by the most succes