now, because a boy who wouldn't have lived anyhow--"

"That's not it," K. put in hastily. "I know all that. I guess I could do
it and get away with it as well as the average. All that deters me--I've
never told you, have I, why I gave up before?"

Wilson was propped up in his bed. K. was walking restlessly about the
room, as was his habit when troubled.

"I've heard the gossip; that's all."

"When you recognized me that night on the balcony, I told you I'd lost
my faith in myself, and you said the whole affair had been gone over
at the State Society. As a matter of fact, the Society knew of only two
cases. There had been three."

"Even at that--"

"You know what I always felt about the profession, Max. We went into
that more than once in Berlin. Either one's best or nothing. I had done
pretty well. When I left Lorch and built my own hospital, I hadn't
a doubt of myself. And because I was getting results I got a lot of
advertising. Men began coming to the clinics. I found I was making
enough out of the patients who could pay to add a few free wards. I want
to tell you now, Wilson, that the opening of those free wards was the
greatest self-indulgence I ever permitted myself. I'd seen so much
careless attention given the poor--well, never mind that. It was almost
three years ago that things began to go wrong. I lost a big case."

"I know. All this doesn't influence me, Edwardes."

"Wait a moment. We had a system in the operating-room as perfect as I
could devise it. I never finished an operation without having my first
assistant verify the clip and sponge count. But that first case died
because a sponge had been left in the operating field. You know how
those things go; you can't always see them, and one goes by the count,
after reasonable caution. Then I lost another case in the same way--a
free case.

"As well as I could tell, the precautions had not been relaxed. I was
doing from four to six cases a day. After the second one I almost went
crazy. I made up my mind, if there was ever another, I'd give up and go
away."

"There was another?"

"Not for several months. When the last case died, a free case again, I
performed my own autopsy. I allowed only my first assistant in the room.
He was almost as frenzied as I was. It was the same thing again. When I
told him I was going away, he offered to take the blame himself, to
say he had closed the incision. He tried to make me think he was
responsible. I knew--bett