Even the nurses' caps betrayed stray curls or rolls. Her figure was large,
and the articulation was perfect as she walked, showing that she had had
the run of fields in her girlhood. Yet she did not stoop as is the habit of
country girls; nor was there any unevenness of physique due to hard, manual
labor.

As she passed the huddle of human flesh stretched out in the wheel-chair, a
wave of color swept over her face. Then she looked up to the surgeon and
seemed to speak to him, as to the one human being in a world of puppets.
'You understand; you understand. It is terrible!'

The surgeon's brown eyes answered hers, but he was puzzled. Had he probed
her aright? It was one of those intimate moments that come to nervously
organized people, when the petty detail of acquaintanceship and fact is
needless, when each one stands nearly confessed to the other. And then she
left the room.

The surgeon proceeded without a word, working intently, swiftly,
dexterously. At first the head nurse was too busy in handling bowls and
holding instruments to think, even professionally, of the operation. The
interne, however, gazed in admiration, emitting exclamations of delight as
the surgeon rapidly took one step after another. Then he was sent for
something, and the head nurse, her chief duties performed, drew herself
upright for a breath, and her keen, little black eyes noticed an
involuntary tremble, a pause, an uncertainty at a critical moment in the
doctor's tense arm. A wilful current of thought had disturbed his action.
The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening,
but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the
ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid
summer air thus early in the year would shake any man's nerve. But the head