The surgeon laughed a dry, unpleasant laugh. “It’s easy to call another man names—but it doesn’t mean anything. And what right have you to ask me to betray Miss O’Leary’s silence?”
“Betray!” Peter fairly howled back the word at him. “Take off your coat. Take it off, or I’ll rip it off. Now roll up your sleeves—no, your left. There, by Jupiter! Look, Miss Maxwell!”
Peter’s demand was unnecessary. The eyes of the superintendent were already fixed on the manifold tiny blue discolorations in the surgeon’s bare arm. “Cocaine.” She almost whispered it under her breath, and then louder, “How long?”
“Four years, about.” The surgeon’s voice was quite toneless; he seemed to shrink and grow old while they watched him.
Miss Maxwell looked across at the girl, who was leaning forward, her face in her hands, crying softly. Her eyes were bitterly accusing, and there was abundant scorn in her voice when she spoke again to the surgeon. “So Leerie has been shielding you all along and helping you to fight it. How did she know?”
“I told her. I thought if some one with a courage and trust like hers knew about it it might pull me together. God! I wish I’d killed myself three years ago.”
“Pity you didn’t!” There was no mercy in Peter’s voice. “But I suppose she wouldn’t let you; I suppose she held you together then as she’s trying to now. She’s trying to save you for to-morrow—seven A.M.—and all the to-morrows coming after. I—I think I’m beginning to understand.” His arms dropped dejectedly to his sides. For Peter there could be but one meaning to Sheila’s sacrifice and struggle.
But Miss Maxwell was holding fast to her cross-examination. “And I suppose you promised Leerie three years ago if she’d keep silent you would fight it through and break the habit. And that’s why you’ve let no one but Leerie and Miss Jacobs in the operating-room, so no one else would guess. Did Miss Jacobs find out three years ago?”
Doctor Brainard nodded.
Words failed the superintendent, but her expression boded ill for the little green-eyed nurse. “Well,” she said, at length, “there’s only one thing that matters right now—are you or are you not going to be in a fit condition to operate to-morrow?”