Leaver’s head turned back again.  “I know no better man,” he said, and their eyes met.

“There are plenty of better men,” Burns went on, “but I confess I want this case, and am ready to take advantage of having it in my house, for the present, at least.  Well, then,—­if you can trust me, why not do as I suggest?”

Leaver shivered a little, in the warm June light, and put one hand for a moment over his eyes.

“You don’t know what you ask, Red,” he said, slowly.

“Don’t I?  Perhaps not.  Yet—­I have a notion that I do.  It would be a trifle easier to face the rack and thumbscrew, eh?  Well, let’s get it over.  Possibly telling will ease you a bit, after all.  It works that way sometimes.”

By and by, persisting, gently questioning, helping by his quick understanding of a situation almost before Leaver had unwillingly pictured it, he had the whole story.  It was almost precisely the story he had guessed,—­an old story, repeated by many such sufferers from overwork and heavy responsibility, but new to each in its entirety of torture, even to this man, who, still in his youthful prime, had himself heard many such a tale from the unhappy lips of his patients, yet to whom his own case seemed unique in its suffering and hopelessness.

The recital culminated in an incident so painful to the subject of it that he could recount it only in the barest outlines.  His listener, however, by the power of his experience and his sympathy, could fill in every detail.  A day had come, some six weeks before, when Leaver, though thoroughly worn out by severe and long continued strain, had attempted to operate.  The case was an important one, the issue doubtful.  Friends of the patient had insisted that no one else should take the eminent young surgeon’s place, and, although he had had more than one inner warning, in recent operations, that his nerve was not what it had been, his pride had bid him see the thing through.  He had given himself an energizing hypodermic,—­he had never done that before,—­and had gone into it.  There had come a terrible moment....  Leaver’s lips grew white as he tried to tell it.

He felt his friend’s warm, firm hand upon his own as he faltered.  “Steady, old fellow,” said Burns’s quiet voice.  “We’ve got this nearly over.  You’ll be better afterward.”

After a little Leaver went on.

He had come upon an unexpected complication—­one undreamed of by himself or the consulting surgeons.  “You know—­” said Leaver.  Burns nodded, emphatically.  “You bet I know,” said he, and his hand came again upon Leaver’s, and stayed there.  Leaver went on again, slowly.