He was gone. CHAPTER II THE KERNEL OF THE DIFFICULTY "I want to know!" said Capper, with extreme deliberation. He was the best-known surgeon in the United States, and he looked like nothing so much as a seedy Evangelical parson. Hair, face, beard, all bore the same distinguishing qualities, were long and thin and yellow. He sat coiled like a much-knotted piece of string, and he seemed to possess the power of moving any joint in his body independently of the rest. He cracked his fingers persistently when he talked after a fashion that would have been intolerable in anyone but Capper. His hands were always in some ungainly attitude, and yet they were wonderful hands, strong and sensitive, the colour of ivory. His eyes were small and green, sharp as the eyes of a lizard. They seemed to take in everything and divulge nothing. "What do you want to know?" said Lucas. He was lying in bed with the spring sunshine full upon him. His eyes were drawn a little. He had just undergone a lengthy examination at the hands of the great doctor. "Many things," said Capper, somewhat snappishly. "Chief among them, why your tomfool brother--you call him your brother, I suppose?--brought me over here on a fool's errand." "He is my brother," said Lucas quietly. "And why a fool's errand? Is there something about my case you don't like?" "There is nothing whatever," said Capper, with an exasperated tug at his pointed beard. "I could make a sound man of you. It wouldn't be easy. But I could do it--given one thing, which I shan't get. Is the sun bothering you?" He suddenly left his chair, bent over and with infinite gentleness raised his patient to an easier posture and drew forward the curtain. "I guess I won't talk to you now," he said. "I've given you as much as you can stand and then some already. How's that? Is it comfort?" "Absolute," Lucas said with a smile. "Don't go, doctor. I am quite able to talk. I suppose matters haven't altered very materially since you saw me last?" "I don't see why you should suppose that," said Capper. "As a matter of fact things have altered--altered considerably. Say, you don't have those fainting attacks any more?" "No. I've learnt not to faint." There was a boyishly pathetic note about the words though the lips that uttered them still smiled. Capper nodded comprehendingly. "But the pain is just as infernal, eh? Only you've the grit to stand against it. Remember the last time I overhauled you? You fainted twice. That's how I knew you would never face it. But I've hurt you worse to-day, and I'm damned if I know how you managed to come up smiling." "Then why do you surmise that you have been brought here on a fool's errand?" Lucas asked.