the altar of duty, at the bidding of a hardened despot.

All Angela's childhood came back in a brief illuminating flash. The
face of her one dear, dead companion--her mother--glowed before her.
How her mother would have cared for and tended, and worshipped a man
even as the one lying riddled on that bed of suffering! All the best
in Angela was from her mother. All the resolute fighting quality was
from her father. She would use both now in defence of the wounded
man. She would tend him and care for him, and see that no harm came
to him.

She was roused from her self-searching thoughts by the doctor's
voice and the touch of his hand.

"Good-bye for the present, Miss Kingsnorth. Sure it's in good hands
I'm lavin' him. But for you he'd be lyin' in the black jail with old
Doctor Costello glarin' down at him with his gimlet eyes, I wouldn't
wish a dog that. Faith, I've known Costello to open a wound 'just to
see if it was healthy,' sez he, an' the patient screamin' 'Holy
murther!' all the while, and old 'Cos' leerin' down at him and
sayin': 'Does it hurt? Go on now, does it? Well, we'll thry this one
and see if that does, too,' and in 'ud go the lance again. I tell ye
it's the Christian he is!" He stopped abruptly. "How me tongue runs
on. 'Talkative McGinnis' is what the disrespectful ones call me--
I'll run in after eight and mebbe I'll bleed him a little and give
him something'll make him slape like a top till mornin'. Good-bye to
yez, for the present," and the kindly, plump little man hurried out
with the faint echo of a tune whistling through his lips.

Angela sat down at a little distance from the sickbed and watched