Agnes was firm in her adherence to the plan of procedure which she had announced. She declared that, as matters stood, she would not become a burden, with all her encumbrances, upon his slender resources. If mischance wrested the promised fee out of his hands, then they must go their ways separately. She repeated her determination to abide by that on the morning when Dr. Slavens announced the necessity of the operation. Slavens was hurt and disappointed. It seemed that his faith in her suffered a blighting frost. "In plain words," he charged, "you will refuse to marry me because I am poor." "There's no other way to put it," she admitted. "But I refuse only out of my boundless esteem and tenderness for you and your success. I am putting down happiness when I do this, and taking up an additional load of pain. But what peace or self-respect would ever be mine again if I should consent to add the burden of two helpless old people to what you will have to carry on your own account?" "My back is broad enough to be Atlas to your little world," he declared. "But there's no use strangling success," she argued. "It can't be many years, at the longest, until time and nature relieve my tottering charges of their dependence on me. If you would care to wait, and if I might not be too old----" "If there's nothing better for it, then we'll wait," he cut in almost sharply. "Do you remember how I showed you to hold that cone?" She had consented to assist him in the operation to the extent of keeping the patient under the ether after he had administered it. "This way," said she, placing the cotton-filled paper cone over the nostrils. From the physician's standpoint, the operation was entirely successful. A successful operation, as the doctor defines it, means that the doctor gets what he starts after. Frequently the patient expires during the operation, but that does not subtract anything from the sum of its success. In the case of Jerry Boyle the matter wore a brighter aspect all around. The doctor found the bit of coat-lining which the bullet had carried in with it, and removed it. The seat of inflammation was centered around it, as he had foreseen, and the patient was still alive, even though the greater part of the day had passed since the tormenting piece of cloth was removed. The camp was hushed in the depression of despair. Until that day they had heard Mrs. Boyle's hopeful voice cheering her husband, upon whom the foreboding of disaster seemed to weigh prophetically. Sometimes she had sung in a low voice as she watched beside her son. But now her courage seemed to have left her, and she sat in the tent with the Governor, huddled like two old tempest-beaten birds hiding under a frail shelter which could not shield them from the last bitter blow. They had given the care of their son over to the doctor and Agnes entirely, watching their coming and going with tearful eyes, waiting for the word that would cut the slender stay of hope.