Eagerly she walked forward into the room, and as
she did so she made a delightful picture -- or so those
two men, so very different the one from the other,
thought -- of youth, of happiness, and yes, of young
love satisfied.

Sir Jacques took a step forward. The General did
not move at all. He was standing with his back to
the further window, his face in shadow.

"Now, Miss Rose, I want you to listen very carefully
to me for a few minutes."

She looked at him gravely. "Yes?" she said questioningly.

"I have asked you to come," went on the great
surgeon, "because I want to impress upon your mind
the fact that how you behave at this juncture of his
life may make a very great, I might almost say all the
difference, to your future husband, to Mr. Jervis
Blake."

Rose's senses started up, like sentinels, to attention.

"You will have need of all your courage, and also
of all your good sense, to help him along a very rough
bit of road," he went on feelingly.

Rose felt a thrill of sudden, unreasonable terror.
"What is it?" she exclaimed. "What is going to happen
to him? Is he going to die? I don't mind what
it is, if only you will tell me!" She instinctively
moved over to Sir John Blake's side, and he, as instinctively,
put his arm round her shoulder.

"Mr. Jenkinson agrees with me," said Sir Jacques,
slowly and deliberately, "that his foot, the foot that
was crushed, will have to come off. There is no danger --
no reasonable danger, that is -- of the operation
costing him his life." He waited a moment, and as

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