ilson stirred, but he found no adequate words. Only a part of what K.
said got to him. For a moment he was back in a famous clinic, and this
man across from him--it was not believable!

"It's not hard work, and it's safe. If I make a mistake there's no life
hanging on it. Once I made a blunder, a month or two ago. It was a big
one. It cost me three dollars out of my own pocket. But--that's all it
cost."

Wilson's voice showed that he was more than incredulous; he was
profoundly moved.

"We thought you were dead. There were all sorts of stories. When a year
went by--the Titanic had gone down, and nobody knew but what you were on
it--we gave up. I--in June we put up a tablet for you at the college. I
went down for the--for the services."

"Let it stay," said K. quietly. "I'm dead as far as the college goes,
anyhow. I'll never go back. I'm Le Moyne now. And, for Heaven's sake,
don't be sorry for me. I'm more contented than I've been for a long
time."

The wonder in Wilson's voice was giving way to irritation.

"But--when you had everything! Why, good Heavens, man, I did your
operation to-day, and I've been blowing about it ever since."

"I had everything for a while. Then I lost the essential. When that
happened I gave up. All a man in our profession has is a certain method,
knowledge--call it what you like,--and faith in himself. I lost my
self-confidence; that's all. Certain things happened; kept on happening.
So I gave it up. That's all. It's not dramatic. For about a year I was
damned sorry for myself. I've stopped whining now."

"If every surgeon gave up because he lost cases--I've just told you I
did your operation to-day. There was just a chance for the man, and I
took my courage in my hands and tried it. The poor devil's dead."

K. rose rather wearily and emptied his pipe over the balcony rail.

"That's not the same. That's the chance he and you took. What happened
to me was--different."

Pipe in hand, he stood staring out at the ailanthus tree with its crown
of stars. Instead of the Street with its quiet houses, he saw the men
he had known and worked with and taught, his friends who spoke his
language, who had loved him, many of them, gathered about a bronze
tablet set in a wall of the old college; he saw their earnest faces and
grave eyes. He heard--

He heard the soft rustle of Sidney's dress as she came into the little
room behind them.

CHAPTER XIII

A few days after Wilson's recognit