tinkin'--Ise forgits wot it wuz--lemme see--Wot's de matter? Wheer is
youse all?--" The little frame relaxed and lay quiet.

"That is all you can do for us, Miss Durant," said Dr. Armstrong.

"May I not stay, as I promised him I would?" begged Constance.

"Can you bear the sight of blood?"

"I don't know--but see--I'll turn my back." Suiting the action to the
word, the girl faced so that, still holding Swot's hand, she was looking
away from the injured leg.

A succession of low-spoken orders to his assistants was the doctor's way
of telling her that he left her to do as she chose, She stood quietly for
a few minutes, but presently her desire to know the progress of the
operation, and her anxiety over the outcome, proved too strong for her,
and she turned her head to take a furtive glance. She did not look away
again, but with a strange mixture of fascination and squeamishness, she
watched as the bleeding was stanched with sponges, each artery tied, and
each muscle drawn aside, until finally the nerve was reached and removed;
and she could not but feel both wonder and admiration as she noted how Dr.
Armstrong's hands, at other times seemingly so much in his way, now did
their work so skilfully and rapidly. Not till the operation was over, and
the resulting wound was being sprayed with antiseptics, did the girl
realize how cold and faint she felt, or how she was trembling. Dropping
the hand of the boy, she caught at the operating-table, and then the room
turned black.

"It's really nothing," she asserted. "I only felt dizzy for an instant.