The challenge was too direct. "If you do not mind, I shall be glad," he replied, bending over a little array of instruments on the table. "Will you stand here, Lord Blackborough. Hold the hand so, Nurse Helen, and be ready, please, with the carbolised gauze." Half-way through Ned winced; and the doctor said sharply, "That was my fault. Move your hand a little, Nurse Helen; it gets in my way." "There! that's done!" he continued at last. "Now for the bandages." Was it only fancy, or was Ned Blackborough right in thinking that the supple, skilful hands were not quite so skilful as usual, that there was an unwonted nervousness about them? He pondered over this as, being hurried, he went downstairs, leaving Helen tidying up, Peter Ramsay sterilising his instruments before putting them away. He left behind him also a sense of stress in the air, a feeling on the part of both those busy people that things could no longer go on as they had been going on. Suddenly Peter Ramsay flung aside a probe, and walked up to Helen decisively. "Helen!" he said. "I shall have to go away if you won't marry me. Think me as much a fool as you like--the fact remains. You saw--you must have seen how disgracefully I did that simple little thing. Why? Because you were there--because your hand touched mine." "I will never offer to interfere with your work again!" she said coldly. "Interfere!" he echoed with a bitter little laugh. "You always interfere! I feel the very touch of your hands upon my clothes." A slow crimson stained her very forehead. "I am sorry, I will never touch them again." "That will do no good," he replied gloomily. "Can you not see that your influence touches my life at every point? When I go through the wards I hear you have just passed, I almost see the flutter of your dress. I am always reminded, I am always thinking of you. If you will not marry me, I must go away." "I cannot marry you, and I have told you why. It is not as though I did not know what love meant. I have known it, and--and I do not know it now. But you need not go away. I will go." "That, you shall not do," he replied, his chin setting itself long and stern. "Besides it would be no good. This place is redolent of you--your goodness, your sweetness. Oh! Helen, Helen! If you will only marry me, love will come--for you like me--I don't believe there is any one you like better--except perhaps Ned Blackborough." "Ned!" she echoed, glad of evasion, "poor Ned! I have had such a curious feeling lately that he is in some way maimed; and yet not maimed. I don't know how to express it, but he seems to me to be using his soul more and his body less." "I wish I could get rid of my body," muttered Dr. Ramsay so quaintly that Helen perforce had to smile; whereat, he said aggrievedly, "It isn't all that either, Mrs. Tressilian; love----" She checked him with a soft sympathising hand. "Do I not know what love is? Dr. Ramsay! I cannot pity you."