consciousness--if you had something to say to him?"

Her face flushed. He humiliated her. He must know that she had nothing to
say to _him_, as well as if he had known the whole story.

"We could make him comfortable, and who knows, to-morrow might not be too
late!" The surgeon ended irritably, impatient at the unprofessional
frankness of his words, and disgusted that he had taken this woman into his
confidence. Did she want him to say: 'See here, there's only one chance in
a thousand that we can save that carcass; and if he gets that chance, it
may not be a whole one--do you care enough for him to run that dangerous
risk?' But she obstinately kept her own counsel. The professional manner
that he ridiculed so often was apparently useful in just such cases as
this. It covered up incompetence and hypocrisy often enough, but one could
not be human and straightforward with women and fools. And women and fools
made up the greater part of a doctor's business.

Yet the voice that said, "I am his wife," rang through his mind and
suggested doubts. Under the miserable story that he had instinctively
imaged, there probably lay some tender truth.

"There's a chance, you see!" he resumed more tenderly, probing her for an
evidence. "All any of us have, except that he is not in a condition for an
operation."

This time her mouth quivered. She was struggling for words. "Why do you ask
me?" she gasped. "What--" but her voice failed her.

"I should operate," the surgeon replied gently, anticipating her question.
"I, we should think it better that way, only sometimes relatives object."