nurse understood well that such a wavering of will or muscle must not occur
again, or the hairbreadth chance the drunken fellow had----

She watched that bared arm, her breath held. The long square fingers closed
once more with a firm grip on the instrument. "Miss Lemoris, some No. 3
gauze." Then not a sound until the thing was done, and the surgeon had
turned away to cleanse his hands in the bowl of purple antiseptic wash.

"My!" the head nurse exclaimed, "Dr. Trip ain't in it." But the surgeon's
face wore a preoccupied, sombre look, irresponsive to the nurse's
admiration. While she helped the interne with the complicated dressing, the
little nurse made ready for removal to the ward. Then when one of the ward
tenders had wheeled the muffled figure into the corridor, she hurried
across to the office.

"It's all over," she whispered blithely to the wife, who sat in a dull
abstraction, oblivious of the hospital flurry. "And it's going to be all
right, I just know. Dr. Sommers is _so_ clever, he'd save a dead man.
You had better go now. No use to see him to-night, for he won't come out of
the opiate until near morning. You can come tomorrow morning, and p'r'aps
Dr. Sommers will get you a pass in. Visitors only Thursdays and Sunday
afternoons usually."

She hurried off to her duties in the ward. The woman did not rise at once.
She did not readjust her thoughts readily; she seemed to be waiting in the
chance of seeing some one. The surgeon did not come out of the receiving
room; there was a sound of wheels in the corridor just outside the office
door, followed by the sound of shuffling feet. Through the open door she
could see two attendants wheeling a stretcher with a man lying motionless
upon it. They waited in the hall outside under a gas-jet, which cast a