He removed his hand to her relief, and stood up.  Olga stood up too, but she was trembling all over.

“Oh, I can’t!  Indeed, I can’t!  Dr. Wyndham, please!” She glanced round desperately.  “There’s Nick!  Couldn’t you ask him?”

“Unfortunately this is a job that requires two hands,” said Max.  “Besides, you did the mischief, remember.”

Olga gasped and said no more.  Meekly she laid her work on the chair by the hammock and accompanied him to the house.  It was the most painful predicament she had ever been in.  She knew that there was no escape for her, knew, moreover, that she richly deserved her punishment; yet, as he held open the surgery-door for her, she made one more appeal.

“I’m sure I can’t do it.  I shall do more harm than good, and hurt you horribly.”

“Oh, but you’ll enjoy that,” he said.

“Indeed, I shan’t!” Olga was almost in tears by this time.  “Couldn’t you do it yourself with—­with a forceps?”

“Afraid not,” said Max.

He went to a cupboard and took out a bottle containing something which he measured into a glass and filled up with water.

“Fortify yourself with this,” he said, handing it to her, “while I select the instruments of torture.”

Olga shuddered visibly.  “I don’t want it.  I only want to go.”

“Well, you can’t go,” he returned, “until you have extracted that bit of needle of yours.  So drink that, and be sensible!”

He pulled out a drawer with the words, and she watched him, fascinated, as he made his selection.  He glanced up after a moment.

“Olga, if you don’t swallow that stuff soon, I shall be—­annoyed with you.”

She raised it at once to her lips, feeling as if she had no choice, and drank with shuddering distaste.

“I always have hated sal volatile,” she said, as she finished the draught.

“You can’t have everything you like in this world,” returned Max sententiously.  “Come over here by the window!  Now you are to do exactly what I tell you.  Understand?  Put your own judgment in abeyance.  Yes, I know it’s bleeding; but you needn’t shudder like that.  Give me your hand!” She gave it, trembling.  He held it firmly, looking straight into her quivering face.  “We won’t proceed,” he said, “until you have quite recovered your self-control, or you may go and slit a large vein, which would be awkward for us both.  Just stand still and pull yourself together.”

She found herself obliged to obey.  The shrewd green eyes watched her mercilessly, and under their unswerving regard her agitation gradually died down.

“That’s better,” he said at length, and released her hand.  “Now see what you can do.”

It seemed to Olga later that he took so keen an interest in the operation as to be quite insensible of the pain it involved.  She obeyed his instructions herself with a set face and a quaking heart, suppressing a sick shudder from time to time, finally achieving the desired end with a face so ghastly that the victim of her efforts laughed outright.