s face very red, his eyes
suffused, and fell to rubbing both hands through and through his hair.

Olive waited a full minute before she spoke. When she did speak, her
clear young voice was steady and authoritative.

"Father, what is it? Something must be very wrong. Is Reed--worse?"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

The doctor's face grew redder still. Then, of a sudden, the words flew
from him in a great gulp of woe.

"He told me, early this afternoon, what he claims to have known surely
for a long, long time: that there is no chance for him to gain; that
the lower part of his body is absolutely dead; that all our treatment,
all our experimenting on it has not affected it at all; that, till the
day he dies, he's bound to stay there just as you see him now, half of
him perfectly well, half of him a senseless log."

Olive whitened, whitened. There came a faint blue line about her mouth,
and her eyes glittered, hot and dry. Nevertheless,--

"You believe it?" she asked steadily.

"I didn't, at the first. In the end, he made me."

The white changed into gray, and the blue line widened.

"I'll go at once," she said briefly. "Please tell Mr. Ross I have been
called out on an important errand."

For Olive Keltridge would not flinch, even in this present crisis. If
Reed was in this final, consummating agony, and needed her, it was for
her to go.

Five minutes later, the curate safely shunted to the front door and
through it, the doctor came back again to Olive, a wine glass in his
hand. She told him with a gesture that she preferred to be without it.

"You needn't worry," she said quietly, as she settled her hat and gave
a touch or two to her crisp white gown; "I promise you I won't disgrace
you. I shall go through it better, if I rely just on my nerves, not on
a stimulant."

"But it is going to be a bad half-hour for you, Olive."

"Do you suppose I don't know that? Reed and I have been chums since I
was three years old; I don't want to watch--"

But the doctor interrupted.

"It isn't Reed you'll have to watch. He will be watching you, trying to
let you down as easily as he can. It's like the boy to take in the fact
that this thing isn't going to be altogether easy for a few of us
others to accept. As far as he is concerned, he's very quiet; his main
anxiety appears to be for the effect of the shock on other people. You
won't have any scene with Reed; he'll look out for that. It's his
father and mother who are