n the floor above him they were getting ready for the operation. Nurses
and doctors, in ghostly white, had set themselves to various preparatory
tasks. And presently everything was in readiness for the great Dr.
Anthony.

He was delayed by a white-faced slip of a thing, whom he led at once
into his private office, leaving Captain Stubbs outside as a proud and
patient sentinel.

When he had closed the door, Anthony took the little cold hands in his.
"He is going to get well, Betty, if my skill can make him. I've got to
operate at once--and there's a big chance--the other way----" He
hesitated, then said, gently, "You love him, child?"

"Yes--oh, yes."

"And he loves you--how blind I've been! How much trouble might have been
saved if I had known."

There was no bitterness in his voice, only a great regret.

"And now," he went on, "I'm going to save him for you, if I can. And
I've sent a nurse to take care of Letty Matthews so that you can have
Sophie with you."

He had thought of everything. It came to Bettina then what he meant to
the world--this great Dr. Anthony--she had hated his mission of
healing--and the skill which might now mean to her a lifetime of
happiness instead of unutterable woe.

She tried, faltering, to tell him something of what she was feeling.

"Hush, dear child. You could not know. And now you must be very brave,
and pray your little white prayers for Justin, and, please God, we shall
bring him through."

Then he had gone away and Sophie had come, and the dreadful time of
waiting had begun.

Sophie, who had walked in the Valley of the Shadow with her own beloved,
knew the right things to say to the child who clung to her.

"Dearest, think of all you will mean to him when he gets well. Why,
there's never an opportunity for a woman like that of having the man she
loves dependent upon her--you can do all of the lovely little things for
him."

"But if he should not--get well?"

"You are not to think of that."

"I must think of it."

"Hush, dear, _don't_. You can't help him or yourself by crying--I know
how you feel--but think of this. If you should lose him, you will still
have known love at its best. And you will never be content with a lesser
thing. Oh, Betty, child, it is the shallow people who ask, 'Is it better
to have loved and lost than never to have loved?' How _can_ there be
any doubt? The woman who has not loved is only a half creature."

"I know. Oh, Sophie, it seems suc