disinfected the instruments which had made an attack on the man of men
in her eyes, and saw the wound stitched up--the last act of the business
before the Young Doctor turned to her and said, "You'll do wherever
you're put in life, Miss Kitty Tynan. You're a great girl. And now get
some fresh air and forget all about it."

Forget all about it! So, the Young Doctor knew what happened after a
terrific experience like that! In truth, he knew only too well. Great
surgeons do surgery only and have innumerable operations to give them
skill; but a country physician and surgeon must be a sane being to keep
his nerve when called on to use the knife, and he must have a more than
usual gift for such business. That is what the Young Doctor had; but he
knew it was not easy to forget those scenes in which man carved the body
of fellow-man, laying bare the very vitals of existence, seeing "the
wheels go round."

It haunted Kitty Tynan in the night-time, and perhaps it was that which
toned down a little the colour of her face--the kind of difference of
colouring there is between natural gold and 14-carat. But in the daytime
she was quite happy, and though there was haunting, it was Shiel Crozier
who, first helpless, then convalescent, was haunted by her presence. It
gave him pleasure, but it was a pleasure which brought pain. He was
not so blind that he had not caught at her romance, in which he was
the central figure--a romance which had not vanished since the day he
declared in the court-room that he was married, or had been married.
Kitty's eyes told their own story, and it made him uneasy and
remorseful. Yet he could not remember when, even for an instant, he had
played with her. She had always seemed part of a simple family life for
which he and Jesse Bulrush and her mother and the nurse-Nurse Egan-were
responsible. What a blessing Nurse Egan had been! Otherwise, all the
nursing would have been performed by Kitty and her mother, and it
might well have broken them down, for they were determined to nurse him
themselves.

When, however, Nurse Egan came back, two days after the operation
was performed, they included her in the responsibility, as one of
the family; and as she had no other important case on at the time,
fortunately she could give Crozier almost undivided attention. She had
been at first disposed to keep Kitty out of the sick-chamber, as no
place for a girl, but she soon abandoned that position, for Kitty was
not th