At the hospital, after a little delay, she was guided to Vincent’s own room, recently deserted.  A nurse came to tell her that all was going well; Mr. Farron had had a good night, and was taking the anesthetic nicely.  Adelaide found the young woman’s manner offensively encouraging, and received the news with an insolent reserve.

“That girl is too wildly, spiritually bright,” she said to herself.  But no manner would have pleased her.

Left alone, she sat down in a rocking-chair near the window.  Vincent’s bag stood in the corner, his brushes were on the dressing-table, his tie hung on the electric light.  Immortal trifles, she thought, that might be in existence for years.

She began poignantly to regret that she had not insisted on seeing him again that morning.  She had thought only of what was easiest for him.  She ought to have thought of herself, of what would make it possible for her to go on living without him.  If she could have seen him again, he might have given her some precept, some master word, by which she could have guided her life.  She would have welcomed something imprisoning and safe.  It was cruel of him, she thought, to toss her out like this, rudderless and alone.  She wondered what he would have given her as a commandment, and remembered suddenly the apocryphal last words which Vincent was fond of attributing to George Washington, “Never trust a nigger with a gun.”  She found herself smiling over them.  Vincent was more likely to have quoted the apparition’s advice to Macbeth:  “Be bloody, bold, and resolute.”  That would have been his motto for himself, but not for her.  What was the principle by which he infallibly guided her?

How could he have left her so spiritually unprovided for?  She felt imposed upon, deserted.  The busily planning little mind that had suddenly taken possession of her could not help her in the larger aspects of her existence.  It would be much simpler, she thought, to die than to attempt life again without Vincent.

She went to the window and looked out at the roofs of neighboring houses, a disordered conglomeration of water-tanks and skylights and chimney-pots.  Then nearer, almost under her feet, she looked into a courtyard of the hospital and saw a pale, emaciated man in a wheel-chair.  She drew back as if it were something indecent.  Would Vincent ever become like that? she thought.  If so, she would rather he died now under the anesthetic.

A little while later the nurse came in, and said almost sternly that Dr. Crew had sent her to tell Mrs. Farron that the conditions seemed extremely favorable, and that all immediate danger was over.

“You mean,” said Adelaide, fiercely, “that Mr. Farron will live?”

“I certainly inferred that to be the doctor’s meaning,” answered the nurse.  “But here is the assistant, Dr. Withers.”

Dr. Withers, bringing with him an intolerable smell of disinfectants and chloroform, hurried in, with his hair mussed from the haste with which he had removed his operating-garments.  He had small, bright, brown eyes, with little lines about them that seemed to suggest humor, but actually indicated that he buoyed up his life not by exaltation of himself, but by half-laughing depreciation of every one else.