"That's the British medical practice, Mr. Imason, where the alternative is as you put it. But there are, of course, degrees of danger, and these would influence----" "You've told me the danger might be serious. That's enough. Dr. Gardiner, pending the arrival of your colleague, the only thing--the only thing--you have to think of is my wife. Those are my definite wishes, please. You'll remain here, of course? Thank you. We'll have another talk later. I want to speak to Jeremy now." He turned towards the window, meaning to join Jeremy in the garden and report to him. Mrs. Mumple came forward, waving her hands helplessly and weeping profusely. "Oh, Mr. Imason, imagine the poor, poor little child!" she stammered. "I can't bear to think of it." Grantley's impatience broke out in savage bluntness. "Against her I don't care that for the child!" he said, snapping his fingers as he went out. CHAPTER VI NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD No doubt the bodily shock, the laceration of her nerves, and the condition she was in had something to do with the way Sibylla looked at the matter and with the attitude which she took up. These accidental circumstances gave added force to what was the natural outcome of her disposition. A further current of feeling, sweeping her in the same direction, lay in the blame which she eagerly fastened on herself. Her wilfulness and heedlessness cried out to her for an atonement; she was eager to make an appeasing sacrifice and caught at the opportunity, embracing readily the worst view of the case, drawing from that view an unhesitating conclusion as to what her duty was. Thus deduced, the duty became a feverish desire, and her only fear was that she might be baulked of its realisation. She had risked her child's life; let her risk her life for her child. That idea was by itself, and by its innate propriety, enough to inspire her mind and to decide her will. It was but to accumulate reasons beyond need when she reminded herself that even before the accident all her weal had hung on the child, every chance that remained of overcoming certain failure, of achieving still the splendid success of which she had dreamed, in her life and marriage. The specialist was to arrive the next morning; she was reluctant to wait even for that. Old Gardiner was for her an all-wise all-sufficient oracle of the facts, because he had declared them to be such as fitted into the demands of her heart and of her mood. Left to herself, she would have constrained his fears, overborne his doubts, and forced him to her will; he would have stammered all in vain about what was the British medical practice. As it was, open-eyed, refusing to seek sleep, strung up by excitement, all through the evening she battled against her husband for her way.