flickering light upon the outstretched form. This was the next case, which
had been waiting its turn while her husband was in the receiving room,--a
hand from the railroad yards, whose foot had slipped on a damp rail; now a
pulpy, almost shapeless mass, thinly disguised under a white sheet that had
fallen from his arms and head. She got up and walked out of the room. She
was not wanted there: the hospital had turned its momentary swift attention
to another case. As she passed the stretcher, the bearers shifted their
burden to give her room. The form on the stretcher moaned indistinctly.

She looked at the unsightly mass, in her heart envious of his condition.
There were things in this world much more evil than this bruised flesh of
what had once been a human being.




CHAPTER II


The next morning Dr. Sommers took his successor through, the surgical ward.
Dr. Raymond, whose place he had been holding for a month, was a young,
carefully dressed man, fresh from a famous eastern hospital. The nurses
eyed him favorably. He was absolutely correct. When the surgeons reached
the bed marked 8, Dr. Sommers paused. It was the case he had operated on
the night before. He glanced inquiringly at the metal tablet which hung
from the iron cross-bars above the patient's head. On it was printed in
large black letters the patient's name, ARTHUR C. PRESTON; on the next line
in smaller letters, Admitted March 26th. The remaining space on the card
was left blank to receive the statement of regimen, etc. A nurse was giving
the patient an iced drink. After swallowing feebly, the man relapsed into a