I went back into the kitchen and opened the portmanteau my father had put up for me.  Splints and bandages were there in abundance, enough to set half the arms in the island, but neither chloroform nor any thing in the shape of an opiate could I find.  I might almost as well have come to Sark altogether unprepared for my case.

What could I do?  There are no shops in Sark, and drugs of any kind were out of the question.  There was not a chance of getting what I needed to calm and soothe a highly-nervous and finely-strung temperament like my patient’s.  A few minutes ago I had hesitated about using chloroform.  Now I would have given half of every thing I possessed in the world for an ounce of it.

I said nothing to Tardif, who was watching me with his deep-set eyes, as closely as if I were meddling with some precious possession of his own.  I laid the bundle of splints and rolls of linen down on the table with a professional air, while I was inwardly execrating my father’s negligence.  I emptied the portmanteau in the hope of finding some small phial or box.  Any opiate would have been welcome to me, that would have dulled the overwrought nerves of the girl in the room within.  But the practice of using any thing of the kind was not in favor with us generally in the Channel Islands, and my father had probably concluded that a Sark woman would not consent to use them.  At any rate, there they were not.

I stood for a few minutes, deep in thought.  The daylight was going, and it was useless to waste time; yet I found myself shrinking oddly from the duty before me.  Tardif could not help but see my chagrin and hesitation.

“Doctor,” he cried, “she is not going to die?”

“No, no,” I answered, calling back my wandering thoughts and energies; “there is not the smallest danger of that.  I must go and set her arm at once, and then she will sleep.”

I returned to the room, and raised her as gently and painlessly as I could, motioning to the old woman to sit beside her on the bed and hold her steadily.  I thought once of calling in Tardif to support her with his strong frame, but I did not.  She moaned, though very softly, when I moved her, and she tried to smile again as her eyes met mine looking anxiously at her.  That smile made me feel like a child.  If she did it again, I knew my hands would be unsteady, and her pain would be tenfold greater.

“I would rather you cried out or shouted,” I said.  “Don’t try to control yourself when I hurt you.  You need not be afraid of seeming impatient, and a loud scream or two would do you good.”