ts
talking of the baby. Angela's baby. Now the nurse had it. That was
Angela's flesh they had been cutting. That was Angela's wound they were
sewing. This wasn't life. It was a nightmare. He was insane and being
bedeviled by spirits.

"Now, doctor, I guess that will keep. The blankets, Miss De Sale. You
can take her away."

They were doing lots of things to Angela, fastening bandages about her,
removing the cone from her mouth, changing her position back to one of
lying flat, preparing to bathe her, moving her to the rolling table,
wheeling her out while she moaned unconscious under ether.

Eugene could scarcely stand the sickening, stertorous breathing. It was
such a strange sound to come from her--as if her unconscious soul were
crying. And the child was crying, too, healthily.

"Oh, God, what a life, what a life!" he thought. To think that things
should have to come this way. Death, incisions! unconsciousness! pain!
Could she live? Would she? And now he was a father.

He turned and there was the nurse holding this littlest girl on a white
gauze blanket or cushion. She was doing something to it--rubbing oil on
it. It was a pink child now, like any other baby.

"That isn't so bad, is it?" she asked consolingly. She wanted to restore
Eugene to a sense of the commonplace. He was so distracted looking.

Eugene stared at it. A strange feeling came over him. Something went up
and down his body from head to toe, doing something to him. It was a
nervous, titillating, pinching feeling. He touched the child. He looked
at its hands, its face. It looked like Angela. Yes, it did. It was his
child. It was hers. Would she live? Would he do better? Oh, God, to have
this thrust at him now, and yet it was his child. How could he? Poor
little thing. If Angela died--if Angela died, he would have this and
nothing else, this little girl out of all her long, dramatic struggle.
If she died, came this. To do what to him? To guide? To strengthen? To
change? He could not say. Only, somehow, in spite of himself, it was
beginning to appeal to him. It was the child of a storm. And Angela, so
near him now--would she ever live to see it? There she was unconscious,
numb, horribly cut. Dr. Lambert was taking a last look at her before
leaving.

"Do you think she will live, doctor?" he asked the great surgeon
feverishly. The latter looked grave.

"I can't say. I can't say. Her strength isn't all that it ought to be.
Her heart and kidneys make