The engine puffed away, and she withdrew her gaze and glanced at the
patient. To her, too, the wounded man was but a case, another error of
humanity that had come to St. Isidore's for temporary repairs, to start
once more on its erring course, or, perhaps, to go forth unfinished,
remanded just there to death. The ten-thirty express was now pulling out
through the yards in a powerful clamor of clattering switches and hearty
pulsations that shook the flimsy walls of St. Isidore's, and drew new
groans from the man on the chair. The young nurse's eyes travelled from him
to a woman who stood behind the ward tenders, shielded by them and the
young interne from the group about the hospital chair. This woman, having
no uniform of any sort, must be some one who had come in with the patient,
and had stayed unobserved in the disorder of a night case.

Suddenly the surgeon spoke; his words shot out at the head nurse.

"We will operate now!"

The interne shrugged his shoulders, but he busied himself in selecting and
wiping the instruments. Yet in spite of his decisive words the surgeon
seemed to hesitate.

"Was there any one with this man,--any friend?" he asked the head nurse.

In reply she looked around vaguely, her mind thrown out of gear by this
unexpected delay. Another freak of the handsome surgeon!

"Any relative or friend?" the surgeon iterated peremptorily, looking about
at the attendants.

The little nurse at the foot of the patient, who was not impressed by the