“If I shouldn't wake up--I mean if I really _shouldn't_, you know,” Lionel finished, with a faint effort to smile at the doctor's jest, “won't you please not tell my mother too quick? She gets frightened so easily, and, you see, if I didn't wake up--if I never woke again--” “Ah, come off!” Dearing laughed, as he turned to his assistant. “Doctor, this kid hints that we don't know our business.” “But if I didn't wake, if I _didn't!_” Lionel insisted, “you'd not scare her, would you? And--and”--his lower lip quivered--“wouldn't you tell her that I wasn't a bit afraid, and that I didn't cry, and--wait! wait! Won't you tell her that it didn't hurt a single bit, not even a little _teensy bit?_” “Yes, yes,” Dearing said, and, considerably taken aback, he stared at Galt rather than at the insistent speaker. “I'll tell her you are the best boy in the world--the best, the bravest, and the sweetest. And God knows I'll mean it,” he finished, in a lower tone to Galt. “I've seen thousands of kids, Kenneth, but this one gets nearer me than all the rest put together. I swear I am almost tempted to throw the darn job up. But, you see, it has to be done. Doctor,” turning to his assistant, “put him on the table, and I'll tickle his nose and make him laugh. We'll make him have the funniest dreams he ever had.” Doctor Beaman went to the boy and held out his arms, and Lionel was lifted to the table and stretched out on the crisp sheet which had been spread over it. Just then, happening to look round, Dearing saw Galt's face, and hastily stepped to his side. “My Lord!” he whispered, “I see this thing is going against you, old man. You are nauseated; you look faint. Many men are that way--young students sometimes have to give up surgery for that reason. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You like the little chap, and your sympathies are worked up, that's all. But, really, I don't think you ought to stay. I become nervous if others are, and I must have a free hand. Besides, if you were to keel over in a faint at an important moment I couldn't look after you. You'd better run down-stairs and take a whiff of air. I'll call you when it is over.” “Is he going?--must he go?” Lionel asked, as he turned his head and saw Galt moving to the door. “Yes,” Dearing said, “but only down-stairs.” “Oh,” the child exclaimed, regretfully, and averted his face, “I thought he could stay!” Down into the still silence of the great hall Galt went. There was something heartlessly maddening in the calm, yellow sunlight on the grass, which he could see through the doorway. The birds in the trees, as they flitted about with twigs in their mouths and chirped in glee, seemed mocking voices of despair from the deliberate tyranny of the universe. “God have mercy and spare him!” the man cried out from the depths of his agony. “Spare him, O God, spare him!”