But I knew quite well as I spoke that she would never scream aloud.  There was the self-control of culture about her.  A woman of the lower class might shriek and cry, but this girl would try to smile at the moment when the pain was keenest.  The white, round arm under my hands was cold, and the muscles were soft and unstrung.  I felt the ends of the broken bone grating together as I drew the fragments into their right places, and the sensation went through and through me.  I had set scores of broken limbs before with no feeling like this, which was so near unnerving me.  But I kept my hands steady, and my attention fixed upon my work.  I felt like two persons—­a surgeon who had a simple, scientific operation to perform, and a mother who feels in her own person every pang her child has to suffer.

All the time the girl’s white face and firmly-set lips lay under my gaze, with the wide-open, unflinching eyes looking straight at me:  a mournful, silent, appealing face, which betrayed the pain I made her suffer ten times more than any cries or shrieks could have done.  I thanked God in my heart when it was over, and I could lay her down again.  I smoothed the coarse pillows for her to lie more comfortably upon them, and I spread my cambric handkerchief in a double fold between her cheek and the rough linen—­too rough for a soft cheek like hers.

“Lie quite still,” I said.  “Do not stir, but go to sleep as fast as you can.”

She was not smiling now, and she did not speak; but the gleam in her eyes was growing wilder, and she looked at me with a wandering expression.  If sleep did not come very soon, there would be mischief.  I drew the curtains across the window to shut out the twilight, and motioned to the old woman to sit quietly by the side of our patient.

Then I went out to Tardif.

He had not stirred from the place and position in which I had left him.  I am sure no sound could have reached him from the inner room, for we had been so still that during the whole time I could hear the beat of the sea dashing up between the high cliffs of the Havre Gosselin.  Up and down went Tardif’s shaggy mustache, the surest indication of emotion with him, and he fetched his breath almost with a sob.

“Well, Dr. Martin?” was all he said.

“The arm is set,” I answered, “and now she must get some sleep.  There is not the least danger, Tardif; only we will keep the house as quiet as possible.”

“I must go and bring in the boat,” he replied, bestirring himself as if some spell was at an end.  “There will be a storm to-night, and I should sleep the sounder if she was safe ashore.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said, glad to get away from the seaweed fire.