"If it were your own child would you do this operation?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Would you do it, certainly?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let us go in."

"Esther, we shall have to give him air through his throat."

"No, no!" shrieks the woman. "No, no!"

The child's eyes, almost filmy before, are lifted in beautiful appeal
to the mother. "No, Davy. It shall not be!"

"It must be," says Lockwin.

"I have not brought my instruments," says the surgeon. "It is now very
late in the case, anyway."

"Thank God!" is the thought of the father.

The child smiles upon his mother. He smiles upon Richard Tarbelle.

"How can he smile on papa, when papa was to cut that white and narrow
throat?" It is David Lockwin putting his unhappy cheek beside the
little face.