"Please wear it. I will walk a little to keep warm."
"Oh! I can't. I'm not cold, Doctor Thryng. It isn't that."
He became imperative through anxiety. "Then tell me what it is," he said.
"I can't stop thinking of Decatur Irwin. I can feel you working there yet, and seems like I never will forget. I keep going over it and over it and can't stop. Doctor, are you sure—sure—it was right for us to do what we did?"
"Poor child! It was terrible for you, and you were fine, you know—fine; you are a heroine—you are—"
"I don't care for me. It isn't me. Was it right, Doctor? Was there no other way?" she wailed.
"As far as human knowledge goes, there was no other way. Listen, Miss Cassandra, I have been where such accidents were frequent. Many a man's leg have I taken off. Surgery is my work in life—don't be horrified. I chose it because I wished to be a saver of life and a helper of my fellows." She was shivering more from the nervous reaction than from the cold, and to David it seemed as if she were trying to draw farther away from him.
"Don't shrink from me. There are so many in the world to kill and wound, some there must be to mend where it is possible. I saw in a moment that your intuition had led you rightly, and soon I knew what must be done; I only hope we were not too late. Don't cry, Miss Cassandra. It makes me feel such a brute to have put you through it."
"No, no. You were right kind and good. I'm only crying now because I can't stop."
"There, there, child! We'll ride a little faster. I must get you home and do something for you." He spoke out of the tenderness of his heart toward her.