I hope you'll welcome me," he said, half-shyly. "For I've
reason to believe I'm going to be welcomed in other quarters."

"Dr. Wells, you are wanted in the corridor," said the nurse, returning.

He left the room, and Roderick lay back and stared at the ceiling. He
caught the word amputation, and he knew they were talking about his
arm. They were going to cut it off, then. The knowledge did not seem
to add anything to the overwhelming weight which had fallen upon him,
and was crushing him. The whole structure of his life was tumbling
about him, and he lay caught helpless in its fall. His new position
was gone, for well he knew the company could not wait--indeed, would
not wait--for so insignificant a servant as he. His father--perhaps
his father was gone. And now the rosy hope that had steadily and
surely arisen in his heart, since the day he had seen Helen Murray on
board the _Inverness_, until it had lighted up his whole life, had
suddenly vanished in darkness. His fighting spirit rose against these
odds. He shoved the deft hands of the nurse aside and sat up.

"I'm going home," he said hoarsely. Then the nurse, and the little
white table by the bedside with the bottles on it, and the white
uniformed man standing outside the doorway, swung up to the ceiling and
became an indistinct blur. He recovered almost immediately. The nurse
slipped a little thermometer under his tongue, and put a cool finger on
his pulse.

"I must go home," mumbled Roderick. "Where's Dr. Wells?"

"Dr. Wells is wanted in the operating room," she said soothingly. "You
will be glad to know he is going to assist. I understand you are old
friends." She looked at him anxiously. He was in the worst possible
condition mentally for an operation.

"If you'd just brace up, you know," she said encouragingly. "If you
would get hold of yourself." She had prepared many a patient for the
operating table, and had seen few so exercised as this one. "You must
be courageous," she said. "The operation may not be serious. And it
will be over soon."

Roderick looked at her uncomprehendingly. He cared not at all for the
operation itself, but it was the trap that had caught him, and he was
writhing to be free.

Her next words put a new face on it.

"If you have any message to send to your friends," she said gently, "I
should be glad to have it attended to. Have you any--property or
anything that should be settled. We hope this operatio