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She cast about her despairingly for some way to tell him the truth. But even when she spoke she knew she was foredoomed to failure.

“But–suppose the Staff thinks that he should be?”

Doctor Willie’s kindly mouth set itself into grim lines.

“The Staff!” he said, and looked at her searchingly. Then his jaws set at an obstinate angle.

“Well, Nellie,” he said, “I guess one opinion’s as good as another in these cases. And I don’t suppose they’ll do any cutting and hacking without my consent.” He looked at Johnny’s unconscious figure. “He never amounted to much,” he added, “but it’s surprising the way money’s been coming in to pay his board here. Your mother sent five dollars. A good lot of people are interested in him. I can’t see myself going home and telling them he died on the operating table.”

He patted her on the arm as he went out.

“Don’t get an old head on those young shoulders yet, Nellie,” he said as he was going. “Leave the worrying to me. I’m used to it.”

She saw then that to him she was still a little girl. She probably would always be just a little girl to him. He did not take her seriously, and no one else would speak to him. She was quite despairing.

The ward loved Doctor Willie since the night before. It watched him out with affectionate eyes. Jane Brown watched him, too, his fine old head, the sturdy step that had brought healing and peace to a whole county. She had hurt him, she knew that. She ached at the thought of it. And she had done no good.

That afternoon Jane Brown broke another rule. She went to Twenty-two on her off duty, and caused a mild furore there. He had been drawing a sketch of her from memory, an extremely poor sketch, with one eye larger than the other. He hid it immediately, although she could not possibly have recognised it, and talked very fast to cover his excitement.

“Well, well!” he said. “I knew I was going to have some luck to-day. My right hand has been itching–or is that a sign of money?” Then he saw her face, and reduced his speech to normality, if not his heart.

“Come and sit down,” he said. “And tell me about it.”

But she would not sit down. She went to the window and looked out for a moment. It was from there she said:

“I have been accepted.”

“Good.” But he did not, apparently, think it such good news. He drew a long breath. “Well, I suppose your friends should be glad for you.”

“I didn’t come to talk about being accepted,” she announced.

“I don’t suppose, by any chance, you came to see how I am getting along?” he inquired humbly.

“I can see that.”

“You can’t see how lonely I am.” When she offered nothing to this speech, he enlarged on it. “When it gets unbearable,” he said, “I sit in front of the mirror and keep myself company. If that doesn’t make your heart ache, nothing will.”

“I’m afraid I have a heart-ache, but it is not that.” For a terrible moment he thought of that theory of his which referred to a disappointment in love. Was she going to have the unbelievable cruelty to tell him about it?

“I have to talk to somebody,” she said simply. “And I came to you, because you’ve worked on a newspaper, and you have had a lot of experience. It’s–a matter of ethics. But really it’s a matter of life and death.”

He felt most horribly humble before her, and he hated the lie, except that it had brought her to him. There was something so direct and childlike about her. The very way she drew a chair in front of him, and proceeded, talking rather fast, to lay the matter before him, touched him profoundly. He felt, somehow, incredibly old and experienced.

And then, after all that, to fail her!