CHAPTER V. A STORY TO BE TOLD

A great surgeon said a few years ago that he was never nervous when
performing an operation, though there was sometimes a moment when every
resource of character, skill, and brain came into play. That was when,
having diagnosed correctly and operated, a new and unexpected seat of
trouble and peril was exposed, and instant action had to be taken. The
great man naturally rose to the situation and dealt with it coolly; but
he paid the price afterwards in his sleep when, night after night, he
performed the operation over and over again with the same strain on his
subconscious self.

So it was with Kitty Tynan in her small way. She had insisted on being
allowed to help at the operation, and the Young Doctor, who had a good
knowledge of life and knew the stuff in her, consented; and so far as
the operation was concerned she justified his faith in her. When the
banker had to leave the room at the sight of the carnage, she remained,
and she and John Sibley were as cool as the Young Doctor and his
fellow-anatomist, till it was all over, and Shiel Crozier was started
again on a safe journey back to health. Then a thing, which would have
been amusing if it had not been so deeply human, happened. She and John
Sibley went out of the house together into the moonlit night, and the
reaction seized them both at the same moment. She gave a gulp and burst
into tears, and he, though as tall as Crozier, also broke down, and they
sat on the stump of a tree together, her hand in his, and cried like two
children.

"Never since I was a little runt--did I--never cried in thirty
years--and here I am-leaking like a pail!" Thus spoke John Sibley
in gasps and squeezing Kitty's hand all the time unconsciously, but
spontaneously, and as part of what he felt. He would not, however, have
dared to hold her hand on any other occasion, while always wanting to
hold it, and wanting her also to share his not wholly reputed, though
far from precarious, existence. He had never got so far as to tell her
that; but if she had understanding she would realise after to-night what
he had in his mind. She, feeling her arm thrill with the magnetism of
his very vital palm, had her turn at explanation. "I wouldn't have broke
down myself--it was all your fault," she said. "I saw it--yes--in your
face as we left the house. I'm so glad it's over safe--no one belonging
to him here, and not knowing if he'd wake up alive or not--I just was