d what do I owe you for all you have done for me to-day?" he
inquired.

"Why, nothing, my good friend. I have done nothing for you; and my
advice has certainly been disinterested. I don't want pay for that."

"And suppose you should operate?"

And then the doctor told him that he could not do that on any
terms,--that no surgeon under the sun could perform a successful
operation,--that all his hope was in quiet and care. "I will keep you
here a few days," he said, "and build you up all I can, and when the
Arrow of Light goes back again, I will see you aboard, and bespeak the
kind attentions of the captain for you on the journey." That was not
much like an impostor, and in his heart the sick man knew it was the
right course to take,--the only course; and then he thought of Mrs.
Brown and her wonderful cure, and of the great hopes they were
entertaining at home, and he became silent, and again thought to
himself.

Three days he remained with Dr. Shepard, undecided, and resting and
improving a little all the while. On the morning of the fourth day he
said, placing his hand on his breast, "If I were only rid of this, I
believe I should get quite well again." He could not give up the great
Dr. Killmany. "I do not intend to put myself in his hands,--indeed, I am
almost resolved that I will not do so," he said to Dr. Shepard; "but I
will just call at his office, so that I can tell my folks I have seen
him."

"I must not say more to discourage you," replied Dr. Shepard; "perhaps I
have already said too much,--certainly I have said much more than it is
my habit to say, more than in any ordinary circumstances I would permit
myself to say; but in your case I have felt constrained to acquit myself
to my conscience";--and he turned away with a shadow of the tenderest
and saddest gloom upon his face.

"Are you, sir, going to Dr. Killmany?" asked an old man, who had been
sitting by, eying Mr. Walker with deep concern; and on receiving an
affirmative nod, he went on with zeal, if not with discretion: "Then,
sir, you might as well knock your own brains out! I regard him, sir, as
worse than a highway robber,--a good deal worse! The robber will
sometimes spare your life, if he can as well as not, but Dr. Killmany
has no more regard for human life than you have for that of a fly. He
has a skilful hand to be sure, but his heart is as hard as flint. In
short, sir, he is utterly without conscience, without humanity, without
principle.