Doctor Hillhouse was nervous and excited, using stronger language than was his wont.

“And I,” he added, before Doctor Kline could respond—­“I went to the party also, and the sparkle and flavor of wine and spirit of conviviality that pervaded the company lured me also—­not weak like Archie, nor with a shattered self-control like Mr. Ridley—­to drink far beyond the bounds of prudence, as my nervous condition to-day too surely indicates.  A kind of fatality seems to have attended this party.”

The doctor gave a little shiver, which was observed by Doctor Kline.

“Not a nervous chill?” said the latter, manifesting concern.

“No; a moral chill, if I may use such a term,” replied Doctor Hillhouse—­“a shudder at the thought of what might have been as one of the consequences of Mr. Birtwell’s liberal dispensation of wine.”

“The strain of the morning’s work has been too much for you, doctor, and given your mind an unhealthy activity,” said his companion.  You want rest and time for recuperation.”

“It would have been nothing except for the baleful effects of that party,” answered the doctor, whose thought could not dissever itself from the unhappy consequences which had followed the carousal (is the word too strong?) at Mr. Birtwell’s.  “If I had not been betrayed into drinking wine enough to disturb seriously my nervous system and leave it weak and uncertain to-day, if Mr. Ridley had not been tempted to his fall, if poor Archie Voss had been at home last night instead of in the private drinking-saloon of one of our most respected citizens, do you think that hand,” holding up his right hand as he spoke, “would have lost for a moment its cunning to-day and put in jeopardy a precious life?”

The doctor rose from his chair in much excitement and walked nervously about the room.

“It did not lose its cunning,” said Doctor Kline, in a calm but emphatic voice.  I watched you from the moment of the first incision until the last artery was tied, and a truer hand I never saw.”

“Thank God that the stimulus which I had to substitute for nervous power held out as long as it did.  If it had failed a few moments sooner, I might have—­”

Doctor Hillhouse checked himself and gave another little shudder.

“Do you know, doctor,” he said, after a pause speaking in a low, half-confidential tone and with great seriousness of manner, “when I severed that small artery as I was cutting close to the internal jugular vein and the jet of blood hid both the knife-points and the surrounding tissues, that for an instant I was in mental darkness and that I did not know whether I should cut to the right or to the left?  If in that moment of darkness I had cut to the right, my instrument would have penetrated the jugular vein.”

It was several moments before either of the surgeons spoke again.  There was a look something like fear in both their faces.