While he was speaking to Madame Kanaris his wife motioned to a surgeon. "I am ready. But, O doctor, are you sure it will make me quite dead? Are you sure I shall not be just iced over, with a frightful consciousness underneath? Are you sure?"
"Quite sure," said the surgeon pityingly, stealing a glance at the figures in the doorway. "You will be blotted out of existence during the operation. Do not be afraid."
He took her cold hand into a warm, compassionate palm. In a few seconds she was carried past her husband and Madame Kanaris, who were still talking in the corridor.
Prince was startled as the procession of doctors and nurses came out of the room.
His companion glanced at them, and her brilliant color faded.
"Do not leave me," she gasped, holding him by the arm. "Take me away. I should not have come."
Prince hesitated. The stretcher was being carried into the elevator. He turned to the beautiful, agitated woman beside him, drew her hand through his arm, and they went downstairs together.
The operation was long, difficult, and dangerous, taxing both nerve and skill. The operating-room was very hot. One of the nurses fainted, and a young doctor, sick at heart and stomach, helped her away, glad to get out himself.
The operating surgeon, a keen, self-possessed practitioner, looked at the patient when all was over, with a deep breath of relief.
"The very worst case of its kind I ever saw," he remarked to a colleague." It will be a miracle if she recovers, although I would give one of my ears to make it possible."
After three days of delirium and torture the woman died.
It was the twenty-eighth day of February.
Madame Kanaris came into the ward alone, and stood for a few moments looking down at the face on the narrow pillow.
"She could never have recovered in any event?" she said questioningly to the nurse.
"I don't see how she could," was the calm reply.
Madame put out a flashing hand.
"May I see?" she said with delicate curiosity.
