every change for the worse with a self-accusing heart.  The impending trouble was in that indeterminate phase which must give the physician his most anxious moments; and this inexperienced girl; whose knowledge was all to be applied, and who had hardly arrived yet at that dismaying stage when a young physician finds all the results at war with all the precepts, began to realize the awfulness of her responsibility.  She had always thought of saving life, and not of losing it.

V.

By morning Grace was as nervous and anxious as her patient, who had momentarily the advantage of her in having fallen asleep.  She went stealthily out, and walked the length of the piazza, bathing her eyes with the sight of the sea, cool and dim under a clouded sky.  At the corner next the kitchen she encountered Barlow, who, having kindled the fire for the cook, had spent s moment of leisure in killing some chickens at the barn; he appeared with a cluster of his victims in his hand, but at sight of Grace he considerately put them behind him.

She had not noticed them.  “Mr. Barlow,” she said, “how far is it to Corbitant?”

Barlow slouched into a conversational posture, easily resting on his raised hip the back of the hand in which he held the chickens.  “Well, it ‘s accordin’ to who you ask.  Some says six mile, and real clever folks makes it about four and a quarter.”

“I ask you,” persisted Grace.

“Well, the last time I was there, I thought it was about sixty.  ’Most froze my fingers goin’ round the point.  ‘N’ all I was afraid of was gettin’ there too soon.  Tell you, a lee shore ain’t a pleasant neighbor in a regular old northeaster.  ’F you go by land, I guess it’s about ten mile round through the woods.  Want to send for Dr. Mulbridge?  I thought mebbe”—­

“No, no!” said Grace.  She turned back into the house, and then she came running out again; but by this time Barlow had gone into the kitchen, where she heard him telling the cook that these were the last of the dommyneckers.  At breakfast several of the ladies came and asked after Mrs. Maynard, whose restless night they had somehow heard of.  When she came out of the dining-room’ Miss Gleason waylaid her in the hall.

“Dr. Breen,” she said, in a repressed tumult, “I hope you won’t give way.  For woman’s sake, I hope you won’t!  You owe it to yourself not to give way!  I’m sure Mrs. Maynard is as well off in your hands as she can be.  If I did n’t think so, I should be the last to advise your being firm; but, feeling as I do, I do advise it most strongly.  Everything depends on it.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Gleason,” said Grace.

“I’m glad it hasn’t come to you yet.  If it was a question of mere professional pride, I should say, By all means call him at once.  But I feel that a great deal more is involved.  If you yield, you make it harder for other women to help themselves hereafter, and you confirm such people as these in their distrust of female physicians.  Looking at it in a large way, I almost feel that it would be better for her to die than for you to give up; and feeling as I do”—­