Truth, it has been said, is mighty, and must prevail; but it sometimes leaves a bad taste in the mouth.  In the ordinary course of events Miller would not have anticipated such an invitation, and for that reason had appreciated it all the more.  The rebuff came with a corresponding shock.  He had the heart of a man, the sensibilities of a cultivated gentleman; the one was sore, the other deeply wounded.  He was not altogether sure, upon reflection, whether he blamed Dr. Price very much for the amiable lie, which had been meant to spare his feelings, or thanked Sam a great deal for the unpalatable truth.

Janet met him at the door.  “How is the baby?” she asked excitedly.

“Dr. Price says he is doing well.”

“What is the matter, Will, and why are you back so soon?”

He would have spared her the story, but she was a woman, and would have it.  He was wounded, too, and wanted sympathy, of which Janet was an exhaustless fountain.  So he told her what had happened.  She comforted him after the manner of a loving woman, and felt righteously indignant toward her sister’s husband, who had thus been instrumental in the humiliation of her own.  Her anger did not embrace her sister, and yet she felt obscurely that their unacknowledged relationship had been the malignant force which had given her husband pain, and defeated his honorable ambition.  When Dr. Price entered the nursery, Dr. Burns was leaning attentively over the operating table.  The implements needed for the operation were all in readiness—­the knives, the basin, the sponge, the materials for dressing the wound—­all the ghastly paraphernalia of vivisection.

Mrs. Carteret had been banished to another room, where Clara vainly attempted to soothe her.  Old Mammy Jane, still burdened by her fears, fervently prayed the good Lord to spare the life of the sweet little grandson of her dear old mistress.

Dr. Burns had placed his ear to the child’s chest, which had been bared for the incision.  Dr. Price stood ready to administer the anaesthetic.  Little Dodie looked up with a faint expression of wonder, as if dimly conscious of some unusual event.  The major shivered at the thought of what the child must undergo.

“There’s a change in his breathing,” said Dr. Burns, lifting his head.  “The whistling noise is less pronounced, and he breathes easier.  The obstruction seems to have shifted.”

Applying his ear again to the child’s throat, he listened for a moment intently, and then picking the baby up from the table, gave it a couple of sharp claps between the shoulders.  Simultaneously a small object shot out from the child’s mouth, struck Dr. Price in the neighborhood of his waistband, and then rattled lightly against the floor.  Whereupon the baby, as though conscious of his narrow escape, smiled and gurgled, and reaching upward clutched the doctor’s whiskers with his little hand, which, according to old Jane, had a stronger grip than any other infant’s in Wellington.