"Then, Mark," was the half-joking answer, "allow yourself to be guided by my 'second sight.' To speak seriously," the doctor continued, in a graver tone, "I know that there are many practitioners, clever men, who do not possess this peculiar insight into nature. It is a great gift for those who do. It can never be acquired by practice; it must be inherent"---- "I suppose you think I don't possess it," interrupted Mark. "I don't think you do. But for one of us who possesses it, numbers don't; so it is no disparagement to you to say so. To return to the question: Lady Oswald, in my opinion, would prove an unsafe subject for chloroform." "She will make so much of the pain." "Better that she should make much of it--ay, and feel it--than that any risk should be run. I cannot allow chloroform to be given to Lady Oswald." Mark Cray demurred: not outwardly, for he said not another word; but inwardly. He was of that class of men who disbelieve what they cannot see. Some of us will look into a man's face and read his character, read him for what he is, as surely and unerringly as we read the pages of a book; but others of us, who do not possess this gift, cannot believe that it exists, laugh at and ridicule the very idea of it. Just so was it with Mark Cray. That assertion of Dr. Davenal's, that some faculty or instinct within him enabled him to discern where chloroform might and might not be administered, was utterly scouted by Mark Cray. That subtle instinct into nature, that unerring, rapidly-formed judgment of a sick man's state, the mental grasping instantaneously of the disease and its remedy, Mark Cray possessed not. To the very end of his life he would never learn it. Dr. Davenal said that out of numbers of medical men only one would possess it, and he was right. How many do not possess it, and go on to their career's end unconscious of their deficiency, they themselves will never know. Mark could see no reason why Lady Oswald should not be eased of her pain by the aid of chloroform; he did not for a moment believe the doctor could; he regarded it as a crotchet, and a very foolish one. But he suffered the question to rest, and supposed he must bow to the decision of his senior partner. "Shall I call for you, Mark?" asked the doctor, as they separated. "I shall go up in the carriage." "O no, thank you. I'd as soon walk. You intend to be present?" "Or course I shall be," replied the doctor. "Lady Oswald is my patient, in point of fact--not yours, Mark." "Then I need not ask Berry. I thought of asking him to be present." "You can do just as you please about that. If you like him to look on at you, you can have him. Twenty-five minutes after five, remember, punctual. You'll want the full daylight."