The left thigh was broken near the knee-joint.  So much I ascertained at once.  As I manipulated the limb to catch the sound of the crepitus the injured man screamed, and he was continually in very severe pain.  He did not, however, again lose consciousness.

“I must have a stretcher, and he must be carried to a room.  I can’t do anything here,” I said to Sir Cyril.  “And you had better send for a first-rate surgeon.  Sir Francis Shorter would do very well—­102 Manchester Square, I think the address is.  Tell him it’s a broken thigh.  It will be a serious case.”

“Let me send for my doctor—­Professor Eugene Churt,” Rosa said.  “No one could be more skilful.”

“Pardon me,” I protested, “Professor Churt is a physician of great authority, but he is not a surgeon, and here he would be useless.”

She bowed—­humbly, as I thought.

With such materials as came to hand I bound Alresca’s legs together, making as usual the sound leg fulfil the function of a splint to the other one, and he was placed on a stretcher.  It was my first case, and it is impossible for me to describe my shyness and awkwardness as the men who were to carry the stretcher to the dressing-room looked silently to me for instructions.

“Now,” I said, “take short steps, keep your knees bent, but don’t on any account keep step.  As gently as you can—­all together—­lift.”

Rosa followed the little procession as it slowly passed through the chaotic anarchy of the stage.  Alresca was groaning, his eyes closed.  Suddenly he opened them, and it seemed as though he caught sight of her for the first time.  He lifted his head, and the sweat stood in drops on his brow.

“Send her away!” he cried sharply, in an agony which was as much mental as physical.  “She is fatal to me.”

The bearers stopped in alarm at this startling outburst; but I ordered them forward, and turned to Rosa.  She had covered her face with her hands, and was sobbing.

“Please go away,” I said.  “It is very important he should not be agitated.”

Without quite intending to do so, I touched her on the shoulder.

“Alresca doesn’t mean that!” she stammered.

Her blue eyes were fixed on me, luminous through her tears, and I feasted on all the lovely curves of that incomparable oval which was her face.

“I am sure he doesn’t,” I answered.  “But you had better go, hadn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, “I will go.”

“Forgive my urgency,” I murmured.  Then she drew back and vanished in the throng.

In the calm of the untidy dressing-room, with the aid of Alresca’s valet, I made my patient as comfortable as possible on a couch.  And then I had one of the many surprises of my life.  The door opened, and old Toddy entered.  No inhabitant of the city of Edinburgh would need explanations on the subject of Toddy MacWhister.  The first surgeon of Scotland, his figure is familiar from one end of