"It sounds desperate, doesn't it," he answered, lightly, "But with our anesthetics, which put the patient quietly to sleep, and our new, specially made instruments, the trained and careful surgeon can perform the operation quite easily—as far as the mechanical part goes, I mean. But, you can see how all-important it is for you to tell me just how Lou has been affected. I know what a good memory you have; make it count to-night."
With her breathing quickened, and eyes shining from pent-up excitement, Rose began. Simply and painstakingly she recounted everything which she had observed about the baby's strange behavior from that painful night when she had brought her from Judd's lonely cabin, through the long days in which she had steadily weakened and failed, to the time when the invisible hand of Death seemed to have begun to pluck at the thread of life itself.
Donald listened intently, without a word of interruption, until she suddenly broke off her recital with the words, "Oh, I can't think of anything more, truly I can't; and I'm so afraid ... afraid that it hasn't been enough to help."
Miss Merriman's encircling arm closed comfortingly about the girl, and she patted the head which turned and burrowed into her shoulder, but she said nothing, waiting for the man to speak. He mused for a moment, and then his words came with the crisp incisiveness of a lawyer in cross-examination.
"As she lost control of her legs and began to waver and stumble when she tried to walk, did she seem to turn, or fall, to one side more than to the other? Think!"
The anxiety deepened in Smiles' eyes; but she answered without hesitation, "No, I don't think so. It was more as though her little body was plumb tuckered out."
"And her hearing? Did that fail?"
"No, not until just toward the last, anyway. Even when she couldn't seem to answer me, somehow I was quite sure that she understood, when I spoke, or sang, to her. She would kinder smile, but, oh, it was such a pitiful smile that it 'most broke my heart."
"She seemed to understand, eh?" He paused, and the room was very still, except for Big Jerry's stentorian breathing. "Can you say quite certainly—don't be afraid to answer just exactly what you think—can you say, then, that, aside from the general weakness of all the powers of her little body and mind, the headache and occasional sickness, the most noticeable thing in all her strange behavior was that she wasn't able to talk clearly, and this increased until she wholly lost the power of speech which happened before she became as ... as I see her now?"
"Yes, doctor."