"I should like to talk that over with you some other day," Sommers interposed positively, "when I have more time. I am sorry that I shall have to leave at once." After a moment, he added, "And if you have any one in mind for my place, don't bother--" Lindsay waved his hand. "We never have to 'bother' about any member of our force." "Oh! very well. I didn't want to leave you in a hole. Perhaps I was presumptuous to suppose I was of any importance in the office." Sommers stepped briskly to the door, while Lindsay wheeled to his desk. Before he opened the door, he paused and called back pleasantly: "But really I shouldn't operate on the General. Poor old man! And he hasn't much money--'the usual fee' would come hard on him." Lindsay paid no attention to the remark. Sommers had passed from his world altogether; there would be a long, hard road for this young man in the practice of his profession in Chicago, if Dr. Lindsay, consulting surgeon at St. Isidore's, St. Martha's, the Home for Incurables, the Institute for Pulmonary Diseases, etc., could bring it about. Sommers hastily rifled certain pigeonholes of his desk, tossing the letters into his little black bag, and seizing his hat hurried out. He stopped at the clerk's desk to leave a direction for forwarding his mail. "Going away for a vacation?" Miss Clark queried. "Yes, for a good long one," the young surgeon answered. As the door slammed behind him, the black-haired Miss Clark turned to the assistant stenographer with a yawn. "He's got his travelling papers. I knew there was a fuss when I called him to the 'phone. I guess he wasn't tony enough for this office." Sommers was now sinking down to the heated street, unmindful whether he was "tony" enough for the Athenian Building or not. Mrs. Ducharme had whispered over the telephone: "He's gone. Come quick. Mrs. Preston wants you bad." For an instant he asked himself if he had made a mistake when he had given Preston the injection of morphine two days before. A glance at the little instrument reassured him. Perhaps the woman meant merely that he had got away again from the cottage. Why, then, such agitation over the creature's disappearance? But _she_ wanted him "bad." He hurried into the torrid street out of the cool, marble-lined hall, like a factory hand dismissed from his job. It was the first break with the order of things he had grown into. But he had no time for regrets.