Mostyn stifled a reply which rose to his lips. He heard, rather than saw, her leave the room, for a mist had fallen on his sight. In the patient's chamber above there was the grinding of feet on the floor. The chandelier overhead shook. The crystal prisms tinkled like little bells. Presently the nurse came to him. "Dr. Loyd instructed me to say"--she was looking down on his clasped hands--"that they have agreed that the operation must be performed at once. They all think it is the only chance." An hour later the aiding doctors came down the stairs, glided softly past the sitting-room door, and passed out. He called to one of them. "Is the operation over?" he asked. The doctor nodded gravely. He had taken a cigar from his pocket, and was biting the tip from the end. "It was the worst appendix I ever saw, fairly rotten. Loyd will show it to you. It is a serious case, Mostyn. If Loyd pulls him through it will be a miracle. Peritonitis has already set in, and there is very little heart-action. He is sleeping now, of course, and every possible thing has been done and will be done. He is in the best of hands. We can do nothing but wait." It was near dawn. Mostyn was pacing back and forth on the grass in front of the house. The dark eastern horizon was giving way to a lengthening flux of light. A cab drove up to the door, and a man and a woman got out. It was Mrs. Moore and old Mitchell. Mrs. Moore reached her brother first, and tenderly clasped his hands. As well as he could he explained the situation. "Hilda telephoned me," Mrs. Moore went on, in a low, matter-of-fact tone. "She was almost in hysterics, and I could not understand her fully. I thought the operation was to be done there, and so I dressed and went in a cab. Then I found that Mr. Mitchell wanted to come, and so I brought him on." The old man tottered forward. For once he had no comment to make. He passed them, slowly ascended the steps, went into the waiting-room and sat down, leaning forward on his stout cane, which he held upright between his knees. "We'd have got here sooner, but he stopped at the telegraph-office. Dick, he has sent a telegram to Irene in care of the Hardys. I saw by that that he didn't suspect the truth. I tried to think of some way to prevent it, but couldn't. I told him I was in a hurry, but he would stop. Now I suppose the truth will have to come out." "It makes no difference," Mostyn answered. "It might as well come now as later." They went in and took their seats against the wall in the waiting-room. Mitchell stared at them half drowsily, betraying the usual complacency of old age in regard to serious illness or death. "Are they going to operate?" he asked. Mrs. Moore told him that it had already been done. "And Irene wasn't here," the old man sniffed, in rising ire. "It is a shame! I reckon she will have the decency to take the first train home now. This will be a lesson to her, I hope."