to believe that the life she had seen slipping away, and which she had drawn back from the shadows, could ever mean anything to her, aside from her profession.  And why should it?  This dark-eyed boy was a stranger, an outcast, even worse, if she were to believe what the papers said of him.  Yet he had been so patient and uncomplaining that first night when she knew that he must have been suffering terribly.  Time and again she had wiped the red spume from his lips, until at last he ceased to gasp and cough and lay back exhausted.  And Doris could never forget how he had tried to smile as he told her, whispering hoarsely, “that he was plumb ashamed of makin’ such a doggone fuss.”  Then day after day his suffering had grown less as his vitality ebbed.  Following, came the operation, an almost hopeless experiment . . . and that strange creature, The Spider . . . who had paid for the operation and for this private room . . .  Doris thought of the thousand dollars in bills that she had found and returned to Andover; and while admiring his skill as a surgeon, she experienced a sudden dislike for him as a man.  It seemed to her that he had been actually bribed to save Pete’s life, and had pocketed the bribe . . . again it was The Spider . . .  What a name for a human being—­yet how well it fitted!  The thin bow-legs, the quick, sidling walk, the furtive manner, the black, blinking eyes . . .  Doris yawned and shivered.  Dawn was battling its slow way into the room.  A nurse stepped in softly.  Doris rose and made a notation on the chart, told the nurse that her patient had been sleeping since two o’clock, and nodding pleasantly left the room.

The new nurse sniffed audibly.  Miss Gray was one of Dr. Andover’s pets!  She knew!  She had seen them talking together, often enough.  And Andover knew better than to try to flirt with her.  What a fuss they were making about “Miss Gray’s cowboy,” as Pete had come to be known among some of the nurses who were not “pets.”  Her pleasant soliloquy was interrupted by a movement of Pete’s hand.  “Kin I have a drink?” he asked faintly.

“Yes, dearie,” said the nurse, and smiled a large, and toothful smile as she turned and stepped out into the hall.  Pete’s listless, dark eyes followed her.  “Fer Gawd’s sake!” he muttered.  His eyes closed.  He wondered what had become of his honest-to-Gosh nurse, Miss Gray.

CHAPTER XXXVI

WHITE-EYE

The third time that The Spider called at the hospital, and, as usual, in the evening, he was told by the young house-doctor, temporarily in charge, that he could not see the patient in room 218 without permission from the physician in charge of the case, as it was after visiting hours, and, moreover, there had been altogether too much freedom allowed visitors as it was.  This young doctor knew nothing of The Spider’s connection with the Annersley case, and was altogether unimpressed by The Spider’s appearance, save that he mentally labeled him a “rough-neck” who was evidently pretty badly crippled by rheumatism.