With those deliberate movements which characterized, I suppose, the movements of her mind itself, she lit the light; under its yellow rays lay the girl Virginia, her long lashes fringing her translucent eyelids, her delicately turned mouth with lips parted, and an expression of peace about the whole of her body. "At twelve to-day," said the nurse with her finger on the chart, "she went through apparent distress. Something seemed to give her the greatest anxiety. She even spoke to me twice. She pointed. She said, 'It is bad! It is bad!' with great vehemence. It was like that for more than an hour. Then suddenly she became peaceful. She went to sleep. I have not wakened her since." Maybe I shuddered. I remember I merely said in answer, "Yes, yes, that's all right!" and bent over the sleeping child. In the next moment I was lost in wonder at the improvement which had taken place in twenty-four hours. The tension and retraction of the neck and head had relaxed, respiration had diminished, the lips were pink and moist, the spasmodic nerve reaction and muscular twitching had almost ceased. I felt that exultation which comes when instinct as much as specific observation assures me that the tide has turned, that the arrow of fate has swung about, and the odds have changed. Strange as it may seem to many persons, these turns are felt by the doctor at times when the patient is wholly unconscious of them, and often enough I have wondered if, after all, this does not show that the crises of life are not determined within ourselves, but by some watching eye and mind and hand outside of us. As I bent over the little Virginia some such reflection was in my mind. Then you can imagine, perhaps, how startling, how much an answer to my unspoken question, was the sound which at that very moment came from the blue wall beyond the bed! How can we analyze our sense of hearing? Do you know the sound of your wife's footsteps? When you were young, could you pick out the approach of your father by the sound of his walk? Yes. But can you tell how? Are you able to say what it is that distinguishes it from the sounds a hundred other men would make going by your closed door? No. And neither can I tell you why I recognized this sound. All that I can say is this,--the wall was opaque, the sound so faint as to be hardly heard, and yet I knew, as well as if the partition had been of plate glass, that the impact was that of a human body!... There was something in this sound on the wall which drew an involuntary exclamation from me as the jar of forceps draws a tooth. And the sound of my voice, sharp and explosive, woke the child. She stared up at me with that strange look of infinity--I must so describe it--infinity; then, as if she too had heard, she turned toward the wall. "What do you see?" I asked near her ear. She gave me one of her tender smiles and made a little gesture as if to say that she felt her inability to express something.