As soon as sticking-plaster replaced the head bandage, the most impatient of men insisted on rising and going out into the world, clad in a borrowed suit of the detested Pillivant. His first care was to visit the Cottage Hospital, where Quong Ho, semi-conscious, still hung between life and death. Yielding to Baltazar’s insistence, Dr. Rewsby had summoned in consultation the leading surgeon of the nearest town, the great cathedral city. From the point of view of the Faculty nothing could be simpler than Quong Ho’s injuries. To bring a specialist from London would be a wicked waste of invaluable lime. All that science could do was being done. The rest must be left to Nature. Baltazar was disappointed. Having an exile’s faith in the wonders of modern surgery, he had thought that a few hundreds of pounds would have brought down a magician of a fellow from Harley Street with gleaming steel instruments, who could have mended Quong Ho’s head in a few miraculous seconds. The ironical smile on the lips of Rewsby, for whom he had conceived respect and liking, convinced him of extravagant imaginings. He professed satisfaction, although sorely troubled by his queerly working conscience. Outside the ward, he grabbed Dr. Rewsby by the arm. “Look here, Doctor,” said he. “I want you to understand my position. I must pay some penalty for my egotistical folly in bringing Quong Ho to this infernal place. Oh, I know,” he added quickly, checking with a gesture the doctor’s obvious remonstrance; “I know it might have happened anywhere. But nowhere else than in that desert island of a farm would I have had to leave him alone for hours on the bare ground, without medical assistance. It’s my fault. I must pay for it.” “You’ve paid for it, my good friend,” said Dr. Rewsby, “by your anxiety, by your—apparently—by your remorse. You’ve done everything that a human being could do in the circumstances.” “But don’t you see, I brought the poor fellow to this through my selfish folly. You must let me pay for it in some way.” Said the doctor, a practical man, with the interests of his little struggling hospital at heart: “It’s open to you to give a donation to the Cottage Hospital.” “All right,” said Baltazar, flinging out an arm. “If he gets through there’s a thousand pounds for the hospital.” “Good. And if he doesn’t?” Baltazar drew a short breath, glanced down and askance beneath his shaggy brown eyebrows, and set a heavy, obstinate jaw. Then suddenly he flashed upon the doctor: “If he dies you won’t get a penny from me. But I’ll give every cent I have in the world to the General Fund of the hospitals of the United Kingdom.” “Do you really mean that, Mr. Baltazar?”