Donald turned abruptly to the nurse. "Barring the use of technical phraseology, and a possible expression of his own, probably valueless, conclusions, could any doctor, such as is likely to be practising in Fayville, have given me any more information, or told it better?"
"No, doctor."
At these unexpected words of praise the girl's smile appeared mistily for a moment, and then quivered away.
There was silence again in the cabin, while the man turned his thoughtful gaze back to the fire, which had now turned to glowing orange embers. A far-off look, alien to his keen, masterful face crept into it. Finally he seemed to shake off his new mood, and spoke with a queer laugh.
"I told you on the train that I was the victim of an uncanny premonition. I guess that Horatio was right about there being many things outside the ken of our limited philosophy. What psychic whisper from a world whose existence we men of 'common sense'"—he spoke the words sarcastically—"are loath to credit; what inspiration, born of the memory of that story of the case of the Bentley Moors' child in New York, which I told her in words of one syllable six months ago, was it that brought the light of truth to this girl's mind, when the village doctor utterly failed to catch so much as a glimmer of it?"
"Then you think, doctor ...?" began Miss Merriman.
"My diagnosis coincides with Smiles',—a tumorous growth on the brain, probably upon the third left frontal convolution ... right here," he said in explanation, as he touched his forehead between the left eyebrow and the hair. "Rose, you have done excellently. Now we, too, will do what we can, and we shall need your help in full measure to-night. I know that it is going to be bitterly hard for you, perhaps the hardest thing that you will ever be called upon to do in all your life; you've got to be a woman, and a brave one. I'd spare you if I could, but...."
"But I don't want to be spared, Donald," she interrupted, eagerly.
"I know, and I trust you more than I could any grown-up woman here in the mountains. It's hardly necessary to tell you again, that a nurse is a soldier, and must be not only brave, but obedient. If we decide to ... to go ahead I will be, not your friend, but your superior officer for a while, and, if my orders seem harsh and even cruel, you must not hesitate, or feel hurt. You understand that, don't you, dear?"
"Yes, doctor. I understand."