nham, wearing their sterilised gowns and gloves, took their
places. There was no conversation. The only sounds were an occasional
sigh from the patient, a direction given in a low tone, and, at
intervals, the click of the knives and scalpel. From outside the window
came the persistent chirping of a band of sparrows.

Promptly the operation was begun; there was no delay, no hesitation;
what there was to be done had been carefully planned beforehand, even to
the minutest details. Street, a master of his profession, thoroughly
familiar with every difficulty that might present itself during the
course of the work in hand, foreseeing every contingency, prepared for
every emergency, calm, watchful, self-contained, set about the exsecting
of the joint with no trace of compunction, no embarrassment, no
misgiving. His assistants, as well as he himself, knew that life or
death hung upon the issue of the next ten minutes. Upon Street alone
devolved the life of the little girl. A second's hesitation at the wrong
stage of the operation, a slip of bistoury or scalpel, a tremor of the
wrist, a single instant's clumsiness of the fingers, and the
Enemy--watching for every chance, intent for every momentarily opened
chink or cranny wherein he could thrust his lean fingers--entered the
frail tenement with a leap, a rushing, headlong spring that jarred the
house of life to its foundations. Lowering close over her head Lloyd
felt the shadow of his approach. He had arrived there in that
commonplace little room, with its commonplace accessories, its
ornaments, that suddenly seemed so trivial, so impertinent--the stopped
French clock, with its simpering, gilded cupids, on the mantelpiece; the
photograph of a number of picnickers "grouped" on a hotel piazza gazing
with monolithic cheerfulness at this grim business, this struggle of the
two world forces, this crisis in a life.

Then abruptly the operation was over.

The nurse and surgeons eased their positions immediately, drawing long
breaths. They began to talk, commenting upon the operation, and Lloyd,
intensely interested, asked Street why he had, contrary to her
expectations, removed the bone above the lesser trochanter. He smiled,
delighted at her intelligence.

"It's better than cutting through the neck, Miss Searight," he told her.
"If I had gone through the neck, don't you see, the trochanter major
would come over the hole and prevent the discharges."

"Yes, yes, I see, of course,"