The doctor unbent a little.

"I am perfectly well aware of that. Miss Beverley," he said, "and it
may be that there are times when I shall be glad of your help, and in
any case," he went on, "I shall have to ask you to take a share in the
night watching. But the surgical part of the case has been a great
responsibility, and I couldn't afford to have the slightest thing in
the world happen to one of my bandages."

Katharine nodded.

"You are thinking of Nurse Lynn," she observed. "But really I am very
careful."

"I am sure of it," the doctor acknowledged, "but so long as I am here,
with nothing else to do and a very heavy fee if by any chance I bring
my man through, I may just as well see to these things myself. At any
moment I might need your help, and I am very happy, Miss Beverley, to
think that I shall have some one like you to fall back upon. My great
hope," he went on, "is that we may get him across without a touch of
the angina."

"Will he ever get well?" she asked.

The doctor shook his head doubtfully.

"One can never tell," he said. "It is just one of these cases which
are very close to the borderland. With luck he may pull through, may
even become a fairly strong man again, but he doesn't look as though