"I've met her too--several times." He laughed, glancing at Roderick in a shamefaced manner. "I think when you go home, if you'll take me, I'll go along as travelling physician. I'd like most awfully well to see that town of yours." Roderick involuntarily jerked his wrist from the other's grasp. Had he not done so, the doctor would have been amazed at the leap of the already bounding pulse. "I thought--rumour had it at college--that your affections were in process of transition when you graduated." Roderick looked straight at him. It was impossible to keep from his voice something of the bitterness rising in his heart. He was risking his own secret. But he felt he must know. Dick Wells' eyes dropped to his watch again. He was silent for a moment. The nurse left the room and he immediately spoke in a low tone. "It a fellow plays the fool once in life," he said, "that's no reason why he should take it up as a steady profession. I've dropped it for good and all. And if you behave yourself and have this operation right away I'll come and take Christmas dinner--no, that's holiday time--I'll come and prescribe for you shortly after New Year's!" He laughed joyfully. "I hope you'll welcome me," he said, half-shyly. "For I've reason to believe I'm going to be welcomed in other quarters." "Dr. Wells, you are wanted in the corridor," said the nurse, returning. He left the room, and Roderick lay back and stared at the ceiling. He caught the word amputation, and he knew they were talking about his arm. They were going to cut it off, then. The knowledge did not seem to add anything to the overwhelming weight which had fallen upon him, and was crushing him. The whole structure of his life was tumbling about him, and he lay caught helpless in its fall. His new position was gone, for well he knew the company could not wait--indeed, would not wait--for so insignificant a servant as he. His father--perhaps his father was gone. And now the rosy hope that had steadily and surely arisen in his heart, since the day he had seen Helen Murray on board the _Inverness_, until it had lighted up his whole life, had suddenly vanished in darkness. His fighting spirit rose against these odds. He shoved the deft hands of the nurse aside and sat up. "I'm going home," he said hoarsely. Then the nurse, and the little white table by the bedside with the bottles on it, and the white uniformed man standing outside the doorway, swung up to the ceiling and became an indistinct blur. He recovered almost immediately. The nurse slipped a little thermometer under his tongue, and put a cool finger on his pulse. "I must go home," mumbled Roderick. "Where's Dr. Wells?" "Dr. Wells is wanted in the operating room," she said soothingly. "You will be glad to know he is going to assist. I understand you are old friends." She looked at him anxiously. He was in the worst possible condition mentally for an operation.