touch me. I let these things pass me by;
there was no contact.

"I have no claim whatever on your
gratitude," was my most true answer to
what she said. " It is not the cure of
your child that I care about, but the proof
that human skill, aided by science, can
cure thousands."

She smiled slightly, in gentle deprecation
of my self-injustice—perhaps, too, in
incredulity of my indifference towards her
child.

That was the end of our first interview.

All the rest of that day I worked with
divided attention, and with a strange
unsettled feeling. This was a new experience,
and it made me uneasy. Ordinarily I was
my own master. I now put on the screw as
I had never had to do before, and with little
result beyond a painful sense of strain and
effort.

It was natural that I should be under some
excitement. I would not own to myself
that my excitement was more than
natural; nor would I, for an instant, listen to
any internal suggestion that it had any other
cause than that to which I chose to
attribute it.

At the appointed time next morning,
she brought the child.

There was no quailing yet, as I had
feared there might be. She was still
intent upon the cure, still full of confidence
in me.

When she gave the small soft creature
into my hold, and it put one of its little
arms round my neck, voluntarily,
confidingly—I experienced a sensation I had
never before known.

It turned out as I had expected. I had
a hard battle to fight; my patience and
temper were pretty well tried.

Dr. Fearnwell took the small being upon
his knee, stroked its hair, looked into its
eyes, felt its arms, and declared that this
was not a safe case for operation; that the
child was too delicate.

I and one or two others, equally bent on
testing the new discovery, at last overruled
his judgment, and carried our point—not
till I was conscious of the perspiration
standing in great beads on my forehead.
I do not know that I exactly lied about the
little thing, but I deliberately allowed Dr.
Fearnwell to suppose that the child's
position was such that it had far better die
than live a cripple—possibly had better die
than live at all; that it was a child whose
existence in the world was an inconvenience
rather than anything else, and a
constant memorial of what was best forgotten.

I was flushed with triumph when I
returned to Mrs. Rosscar—so she called
herself—bearing the child in my arms.

"With the sweat of my brow, I have
earned the healing of your child," I said to
her, as I wiped my forehead.

She was standing up close to the door;
her arms eagerly received the burden of
mine; her tongue made me no answer,
but her face replied to me.

"On Monday at eleven," I told her.
"This is Thursday. In the intervening
days, keep your child as quiet as you can:
give her as much fresh air and as much
nourishing food as you can. Dr. Fearnwell
sent you this"—slipping five sovereigns
into her hand—" to help to pay your
expenses. He will help you as much as you
may find necessary. He is rich and kind.
You need have no scruples."

The money was my own; it would have
been more, but that I was short of funds
just then. Her face had flushed.

"I take the money for my child's sake.
I thank him for my child's sake," she said,
proudly.

I was now waiting for her to go.

The door of the room was open; she
stood facing the opening, and the light from
the great stair-window fell full upon her.

For the first time I noted her great
beauty.

She was still young, I daresay, but hers
was not the beauty that depends upon the
first freshness of youth. It was the beauty
of perfectly harmonious proportion. Her
form was at least as perfect as her
countenance. She had the most statuesque
grace I ever saw in living woman, as she
stood there holding her child; holding it
with no more effort than a Hebe shows in
holding the cup of nectar.

Her deep, still eyes were fastened upon
me. A curious shock went through me,
even before she spoke.

Her face had now again that extreme
pallor, such as I had never seen on any
other living face.

"On Monday, at eleven," she repeated.
Her marble-pale lips seemed stiffening to
marble-rigidity. They seemed to form
the words with difficulty. "You would
not deceive me? There is not more
danger than you tell me? Forgive me;
but, now it is settled, my heart seems
turning to ice. You would not deceive
me? I know something of the callousness,
the cruelty, of men; but this