you--who may be way off in Kamchatka--when I need him most!" she
finished with a confused jumble of accusation and despair.

Still with unexplainable amiability the Superintendent whirled back into
place in her pivot-chair and with her left hand which had all this time
been rummaging busily in a lower desk drawer proffered Rae Malgregor a
small fold of paper.

"Here, my dear," she said. "Here's a sedative for you. Take it at once.
It will quiet you perfectly. We all know you've had very hard luck this
past month, but you mustn't worry so about the future." The slightest
possible tinge of purely professional manner crept back into the older
woman's voice. "Certainly, Miss Malgregor, with your judgment--"

"With my judgment?" cried Rae Malgregor. The phrase was like a red rag
to her. "With my judgment? Great Heavens! That's the whole trouble! I
haven't got any judgment! I've never been allowed to have any judgment!
All I've ever been allowed to have is the judgment of some flirty young
medical student--or the House Doctor!--or the Senior Surgeon!--or you!"

Her eyes were fairly piteous with terror.

"Don't you see that my face doesn't know anything?" she faltered,
"except just to smile and smile and smile and say 'Yes, sir--No,
sir--Yes, sir'?" From curly blonde head to square-toed, commonsense
shoes her little body began to quiver suddenly like the advent of a
chill. "Oh, what am I going to do," she begged, "when I'm way off
alone--somewhere--in the mountains--or a tenement--or a palace--and
something happens--and there isn't any judgment round to tell me what
I ought to do?"