eep and unaccountable relief in her voice, "I
see. That odour has the strangest effect on me ever since----" she
waited a long time. At last she said she would try to tell me
something, if I would ask her questions to make it easier for her, and
never discuss it afterward unless she should invite the discussion.

I do not, of course, pretend to tell the story as she told it to me. It
was broken by long pauses and many questions on my part. Her phrasing,
though wonderfully effective at times, was empty and inadequate at
others, when she simply could not say what she meant, neither pen nor
tongue being her natural medium of expression. But if the style that I
have used is not hers, it best translates, at least, the mood into which
she threw me.

* * * * *

The surgeon, who knew her well, took her hand on the threshold of the
operating room.

"Even now, dear friend," he said, "we may turn back. You know what I
think of this."

"You promised me!" she cried eagerly. "I have your word that I should
not risk this."

"You have my word," said he, "that in your present state of mind and
under the present conditions you should not risk it. But I am by no
means sure that you could not change both your state of mind and the
conditions. If you say you cannot, then, indeed, I will not let you risk
it. But if you would only say you could! Then I would risk anything.
Will you not say it?"

"I cannot say it," she said. "Open the door!"

"Listen!" said the surgeon; "if when you are on the table, if even when
the ether is at your lips, you will raise your finger, I will stop it.
Will you remember? For you, too, you know, run a risk in doing this."

"I shall remember," she said, "but I shall not raise my finger." And he
opened the door.

Her mind was so busy with a rush of memories and plans, crowded
together at will to shut out her fear, that she was unconscious of the
little bustle about her, the blunt, crude details of preparation.

"Breathe deeply, please," someone said in her ear, "harder, harder
still--so!"

"I am breathing deeply, I am! How can I do this forever? I tell you I
_am_ breathing deeply!" she screamed to them, but they paid no
attention. The surgeon's face looked sadly at her and receded, small and
fine, to an infinite distance. Though she called loudly to them, she
realized that in some way the sound did not reach them, that it was
useless. She prayed that they might not thin