"But he mustn't." The crimson had died out of Sheila's cheeks, and she stood now pale to the very lips, her face working convulsively. "You don't seem to understand, and it's hard--hard to put it into words. Doctor Brainard is young--very young for his position and all the responsibility that has been heaped upon him. His work ever since he came has been terrific--eight and ten majors a day, Sundays, too. It's been a fearful strain, and now to make him responsible for a case like Doctor Dempsy, a case that takes great delicacy and nerve, one that is bound to attack his sympathy and his reputation at the same time, why--why, it isn't fair. Can't you see that if he should fail, no matter how blameless he might be, it would stick to him for the rest of his life, a blot on his work and the San?" Sheila's hands went out in a last appeal. "Send him to the Dentons; they've had five years of experience for every year of Doctor Brainard's. Please, please! Oh, don't you see?" "Why should you care so much?" The words were off Peter's tongue before he knew it. He would have given a good deal if he could have got them back. The girl looked from him to Miss Maxwell. The question apparently bewildered her. Then a hint of her old-time dignity and assurance returned, coupled with her cryptic mood. "Plenty of reasons: he was Miss Max's chief--she always worshiped him--your best friend, a most loved and honored man in the profession. Isn't he? Well, this isn't the time or the place for a risk." The superintendent rose and looked down at the girl. When she spoke there was a touch of annoyance in the tone as well as sadness. "And that's as much--and as little--as you expect to tell us?" Sheila nodded. Miss Maxwell threw up her hands in a little gesture of helplessness. "Leerie, Leerie, what are we going to do with you? It was this way even three years ago." In a flash the girl's arms were about the superintendent's neck, her face buried on her shoulder; the words were barely audible to Peter, "Love me and believe in me--as you did three years ago." And then a choking, wet-eyed, and rather disheveled figure flew past him, out of the room. Miss Maxwell sank back heavily into her chair; her face showed plainly her battling between love for the girl, her sense of outraged discipline, and her anxiety over the decision she must make. Peter watched her with a sort of impersonal sympathy; the major part of his being had been plunged into what seemed a veritable chasm of hopelessness. He tried to pull himself together and realize that there was Dempsy to think about. "What are you going to do?" he asked, at last. "Do? You mean--about--?" Peter nodded.