One day a man came riding swiftly up to his door to say that his wife's
father had met with a bad accident in his great mill. Secord told his
wife. A peculiar troubled look came into his face as he glanced
carefully over his instruments and through his medicine case. "God, I
must do it alone!" he said.

The old man's injury was a dangerous one: a skilful operation was
necessary. As Secord stood beside the sufferer, he felt his nerves
suddenly go--just as they did in the war before he first took the drug.
His wife was in the next room--he could hear her; he wished she would
make no sound at all. Unless this operation was performed successfully
the sufferer would die--he might die anyhow. Secord tried to gather
himself up to his task, but he felt it was of no use. A month later when
he was more recovered physically he would be able to perform the
operation, but the old man was dying now, while he stood helplessly
stroking his big brown beard. He took up his pocket medicine-case, and
went out where his wife was.

Excited and tearful, she started up to meet him, painfully inquiring.
"Can you save him?" she said. "Oh, James, what is the matter? You are
trembling."

"It's just this way, Lesley: my nerve is broken; I can't perform the
operation as I am, and he will die in an hour if I don't."

She caught him by the arm. "Can you not be strong? You have a will.
Will you not try to save my father, James? Is there no way?"

"Yes, there is one way," he said. He opened the pocket-case and took out