Her head thrown back, her dry mouth wide, and her russet hair falling, the unresisting Violet was carried behind a door that shut smartly after her. Too scared to speak, Katie and her companion stood outside. Five minutes passed. Then ten. After a quarter of an hour, the door reopened. "What's this patient's name?" he asked. "Mary Morton," said Carrie. "Where does she live?" Katie gave her own address, and the doctor, a pad of printed forms in hand, noted both the answers. That done, he paused and bit his pencil. "Married?" he asked quickly. "Who?" parried Katie. "Me?" "No; the patient." "Well, now," began Katie, "I can't see as that's----" But the calm voice of Carrie interrupted. "She is married," she said. The doctor pursed incredulous lips. "Where's her husband?" he demanded. Katie, who had caught the need of the moment, jumped into the breach. "Where a lot of them are," she responded, "an' where as many more might as well be, for all the use they are to their poor wives." "Where's that?" "Faith, it's you, sir, ought to know: you're the man." "Dead?" "Run away." "Not much later than yesterday, did he? Well, I must find her nearest relative or friend. Are you either?" Katie's face lengthened. "Och, doctor," she said, "you don't mean to--but it can't be that there's goin' to be a baby!" The young interne grinned. Then, serious again, he answered: "No, there is not. I only wish it was so simple. Where are her folks?" "She's none in the world, an' no money. The hard truth is, doctor, that it's a charity-patient she'll have to be." "That's all right; but are you her nearest friends?" "Yes, doctor." "That'll do, I guess. She's a nervous wreck--among other things. We've first of all got to get her round from that condition, and then I'll have to secure either her own or your permission, as her nearest friends, to do something more." "More?" repeated Katie. "Ain't it bad enough as it is? What more do you mean to do to the poor--girl?" "I don't mean to do anything myself, but this is a common enough kind of case around here to make me certain what the resident surgeon will do: he'll operate." XVII "A NET BY THE WAYSIDE" Hermann Hoffmann, passing one evening to the little clothes-press behind the bar in Ludwig Schleger's saloon, and putting on the canvas coat that was his badge of office, heard the voice of the proprietor calling his name, and turned to see that stout German-American beckoning him to enter the back-room where, a month before, O'Malley had held with Wesley Dyker that conference which had proved so disastrous to Rose Légère.