assistant took his legs off just below the hip-joints.  Then Dr. Bell came.  He was a very old friend of my father’s, and he had always been very good to me.  First he looked to see that what had been done had been well done.  Then he examined the legs that I had taken off.  Then he sent the nurse out of the room.  Then he turned and looked at me, and his face was gray and cold as a stone.  He said:  ‘You fool!  You imbecile!’ And he showed me, clear as a flash of lightning, that the legs never should have been amputated.  Then he said, more gently:  ’For your father’s sake I will save your face, young man.  I shall set my approval to this catastrophe.  For your father’s sake, and for your mother’s.  I have always looked on you as an adopted son.  Are you drunk?’ I told him that I had been up all night, and had had no sleep since five o’clock the morning before.  He shrugged his shoulders, and said:  ’In your right mind, you couldn’t have done it,’ and I knew that I couldn’t.  ‘Horrible!’ he said, ’horrible!  This poor baby to be a wreck of a thing all his life, because a healthy and hearty young man cannot get along on a little sleep.  But, thank God, the child will never know that the operation wasn’t necessary,’

“By common accord, we turned to look at the little boy.  His eyes were open.  He had come out of the ether with miraculous suddenness.  And we saw by the expression of his face that he had heard—­and that he had understood.”

Barbara took her father’s hand in both hers and pressed it hard.  “Poor old dad,” she said.

“Of course,” Dr. Ferris went on, “the child told his parents.  But Dr. Bell lied up and down to save my face.  He said that what the child thought he had heard was part of an ether dream.  And I lied.  And nobody believed the little boy.  I had told him, before Dr. Bell could stop me—­I was hysterical and crazy—­that if there was ever anything under heaven that I could do for him, I would do it—­no matter what it was.  And the boy told his parents that I had said that, but it was only taken by them as evidence that I felt terribly sorry for what I had had to do, and that I had a tender heart.”

“Poor old dad!” said Barbara.  “And what became of the little boy?”

“He grew vicious,” said Dr. Ferris.  “I don’t blame him.  Quarrelled fearfully with his father, dropped into all sorts of evil ways and companionship—­all my fault, every bit of it—­and finally disappeared completely out of the station to which he had been born.  I had reason until the other day to believe that he was dead.  Then I saw him.”

There was quite a long silence.  The fire burned brightly.  Dr. Ferris, greatly agitated by tragic memories, closed his eyes very tightly, as if to shut them out.

“And of course,” said Barbara at last, “the small boy is my Mr. Blizzard.  Well, what can we do for him?”

“You owe him nothing,” said her father sharply.

“Oh, yes,” said Barbara gently, “oh, yes.  Your obligations are mine.  I shall tell him.  It’s like owing a frightful sum of money.  We can’t be happy till we’ve paid up, can we?  You and I?”