Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Better that she should make much of it--ay, and feel it--than that any risk should be run. I cannot allow chloroform to be given to Lady Oswald."

Mark Cray demurred: not outwardly, for he said not another word; but inwardly. He was of that class of men who disbelieve what they cannot see. Some of us will look into a man's face and read his character, read him for what he is, as surely and unerringly as we read the pages of a book; but others of us, who do not possess this gift, cannot believe that it exists, laugh at and ridicule the very idea of it. Just so was it with Mark Cray. That assertion of Dr. Davenal's, that some faculty or instinct within him enabled him to discern where chloroform might and might not be administered, was utterly scouted by Mark Cray. That subtle instinct into nature, that unerring, rapidly-formed judgment of a sick man's state, the mental grasping instantaneously of the disease and its remedy, Mark Cray possessed not. To the very end of his life he would never learn it. Dr. Davenal said that out of numbers of medical men only one would possess it, and he was right. How many do not possess it, and go on to their career's end unconscious of their deficiency, they themselves will never know. Mark could see no reason why Lady Oswald should not be eased of her pain by the aid of chloroform; he did not for a moment believe the doctor could; he regarded it as a crotchet, and a very foolish one. But he suffered the question to rest, and supposed he must bow to the decision of his senior partner.

"Shall I call for you, Mark?" asked the doctor, as they separated. "I shall go up in the carriage."

"O no, thank you. I'd as soon walk. You intend to be present?"

"Or course I shall be," replied the doctor. "Lady Oswald is my patient, in point of fact--not yours, Mark."

"Then I need not ask Berry. I thought of asking him to be present."

"You can do just as you please about that. If you like him to look on at you, you can have him. Twenty-five minutes after five, remember, punctual. You'll want the full daylight."

As they parted, a feeling was in Mark's heart that he would not have liked to confess to the other, and that perhaps he neither cared to encourage nor to dwell upon. He felt perfectly sure of his own skill; he was not nervous; nobody less so; and yet there was a half-reluctance in his mind to perform that operation in the presence of Dr. Davenal, the skilled and accomplished operator. Surely the reluctance could only spring from a latent doubt of whether he ought to make so sure of himself! A latent doubt; one not suffered to appear down far in the depths of his heart it lay--so deep that perhaps Mark thought it was not there at all, that it was only fancy.

He had a great deal rather have had Berry with him--that he acknowledged openly enough to himself. Surgeon Berry was a man of fair average skill, superior to Mark in experience, and he and Mark were great friends. Did Mark fear that the presence of the more finished and perfect surgeon, with his critical eye, his practised judgment, would render him nervous--as a candidate for the Civil Service examinations will break down, simply because those searching eyes are on him? No, Mark Cray feared nothing of the sort; and he could not have told, had he been pressed, why he would have preferred the absence of Dr. Davenal. He had looked on many a time at the doctor in such cases: but that was a different thing.

His thoughts were interrupted by Julius Wild. The young man accosted him to inquire if there were any orders--whether he should be wanted.