Hilda, like the Angel of Mercy that she was, whispered in the girl's
ear: "IF it succeeds, you will get quite well, and--you can marry
Arthur."

The patient's dark face flushed crimson.

"Ah! Arthur," she cried. "Dear Arthur! I can bear anything you choose to
do to me--for Arthur!"

"How soon you find these things out!" I cried to Hilda, a few minutes
later. "A mere man would never have thought of that. And who is Arthur?"

"A sailor--on a ship that trades with the South Seas. I hope he is
worthy of her. Fretting over Arthur's absence has aggravated the case.
He is homeward-bound now. She is worrying herself to death for fear she
should not live to say good-bye to him."

"She WILL live to marry him," I answered, with confidence like her own,
"if YOU say she can stand it."

"The lethodyne--oh, yes; THAT'S all right. But the operation itself is
so extremely dangerous; though Dr. Sebastian says he has called in
the best surgeon in London for all such cases. They are rare, he tells
me--and Nielsen has performed on six, three of them successfully."

We gave the girl the drug. She took it, trembling, and went off at once,
holding Hilda's hand, with a pale smile on her face, which persisted
there somewhat weirdly all through the operation. The work of removing
the growth was long and ghastly, even for us who were well seasoned
to such sights; but at the end Nielsen expressed himself as perfectly