Finden smiled to himself. “Is it a difficult case?” he asked.
“Critical and delicate; but it has been my specialty.”
“One of the local doctors couldn’t do it, I suppose?”
“They would be foolish to try.”
“And you are going away at sunrise to-morrow?”
“Who told you that?” Varley’s voice was abrupt, impatient.
“I heard you say so—everybody knows it.... That’s a bad man yonder, Varley.” He jerked his thumb toward the hospital. “A terrible bad man, he’s been. A gentleman once, and fell down—fell down hard. He’s done more harm than most men. He’s broken a woman’s heart and spoiled her life, and, if he lives, there’s no chance for her, none at all. He killed a man, and the law wants him; and she can’t free herself without ruining him; and she can’t marry the man she loves because of that villain yonder, crying for his life to be saved. By Josh and by Joan, but it’s a shame, a dirty shame, it is!”
Suddenly Varley turned and gripped his arm with fingers of steel.
“His name—his real name?”
“His name’s Meydon—and a dirty shame it is, Varley.”