"Keep it here for me until I see how long I'm to be away," answered Lloyd, her hand upon the knob. "I'll let you know." Lewis had put Rox in the shafts, and while the coupe spun over the asphalt at a smart clip Lloyd tried to remember where she had heard of the address before. Suddenly she snapped her fingers; she knew the case, had even been assigned to it some eight months before. "Yes, yes, that's it--Campbell--wife dead--Lafayette Avenue--little daughter, Hattie--hip disease--hopeless--poor little baby." Arriving at the house, Lloyd found the surgeon, Dr. Street, and Mr. Campbell, who was a widower, waiting for her in a small drawing-room off the library. The surgeon was genuinely surprised and delighted to see her. Most of the doctors of the City knew Lloyd for the best trained nurse in the hospitals. "Oh, it's you, Miss Searight; good enough!" The surgeon introduced her to the little patient's father, adding: "If any one can pull us through, Campbell, it will be Miss Searight." The surgeon and nurse began to discuss the case. "I think you know it already, don't you, Miss Searight?" said the surgeon. "You took care of it a while last winter. Well, there was a little improvement in the spring, not so much pain, but that in itself is a bad sign. We have done what we could, Farnham and I. But it don't yield to treatment; you know how these things are--stubborn. We made a preliminary examination yesterday. Sinuses have occurred, and the probe leads down to nothing but dead bone. Farnham and I had a consultation this morning. We must play our last card. I shall exsect the joint to-morrow." Mr. Campbell drew in his breath and held it for a moment, looking out of the window. Very attentive, Lloyd merely nodded her head, murmuring: "I understand." When Dr. Street had gone Lloyd immediately set to work. The operation was to take place at noon the following day, and she foresaw there would be no sleep for her that night. Street had left everything to her, even to the sterilising of his instruments. Until daylight the following morning Lloyd came and went about the house with an untiring energy, yet with the silence of a swiftly moving shadow, getting together the things needed for the operation--strychnia tablets, absorbent cotton, the rubber tubing for the tourniquet, bandages, salt, and the like--and preparing the little chamber adjoining the sick-room as an operating-room. The little patient herself, Hattie, hardly into her teens, remembered Lloyd at once. Before she went to sleep Lloyd contrived to spend an hour in the sick-room with her, told her as much as was necessary of what was contemplated, and, by her cheery talk, her gentleness and sympathy, inspired the little girl with a certain sense of confidence and trust in her. "But--but--but just how bad will it hurt, Miss Searight?" inquired Hattie, looking at her, wide-eyed and serious.