The surest test of a man’s efficiency is to leave him in a responsible post with nothing to trust to save his own skill and courage. Young doctors, like raw soldiers, are prone to panic, and your theoretical genius may bungle over the slitting of a whitlow, though he be the possessor of numberless degrees.

Mere book lore never instilled virility into a man, and Frederick Inglis, B.A., A.M., B.Sc., D.Ph., gilded to the last button with the cleverness of the schools, was an amiable fellow whose cultured and finnicking exterior covered unhappy voids of self-distrust. It had been very well for him so long as he could play with a few new drugs, look quietly clever, and leave the grimness of the responsibility to Murchison. Dr. Inglis had found private practice a pleasant pastime. He had come from the laboratories full to the brim with the latest scientific sensations, and a preconceived pity for the average sawbones in the provinces. He boasted a brilliant air so long as he was second in command. It was possible to pose behind the barrier of another man’s strength.

That same Saturday night Murchison’s highly educated assistant had been dragged out of bed at two in the morning, and taken in a bumping milk-cart to a farm some five miles north of Roxton. His youth had been flouted on the very threshold by a stern, keen-eyed woman who had expressed herself dissatisfied with the offer of a juvenile opinion. Dr. Inglis had blushed, and rallied his dignity. Dr. Murchison had intrusted the practice to him; what more could a mere farmer’s wife desire?

Above, in a big bed, Dr. Inglis discovered a fat man writhing with what appeared to be a prosaic and violent colic. A simple case, perhaps, to the lay understanding, but abdominal diagnosis may be a nightmare to a surgeon. It is like feeling for a pea through the thickness of a pillow.

Two straight-backed, hard-faced, and very awesome ladies stood at the bottom of the bed and watched Dr. Inglis with sceptical alertness. The assistant fumbled, stammered, and looked hot. The women exchanged glances. A man’s personal fitness is soon gauged in a sick-room.

“Well, doctor, what’s your opinion?”

The challenge was given with a tilt of the nose and a somewhat suggestive sniff.

“Abdominal colic, madam. The pain is often very violent.”

“Ah, eh, and what may abdominal colic be due to?”

Dr. Inglis bridled at the tone, and attempted the part of Zeus.

“Many causes, very many causes. Mr. Baxter has never had such an attack before, I presume.”

“Never.”

“Yes—how are you feeling, sir?”

“Bad, mighty bad,” came the voice from the feather pillows.

The two austere women seemed to grow taller and more aggressive.

“Do you think you understand the case, doctor?”

“Madam!”

“I wish Dr. Murchison had come himself; my husband has such faith in him.”

Dr. Inglis grew hot with noble indignation.

“Just as you please,” he said, with hauteur, yet looking awed by the tall women beside the bed. “My qualifications are as good as any man’s in Roxton.”

The conceit failed before those two hard and Calvinistic faces.

“I believe in experience, sir; no offence to you.”

“Then you wish me to send for Dr. Murchison?”

“I do.”

And the theoretical youth experienced guilty relief despite the insult to his age and dignity.

Sunday morning came with a flood of gold over Marley Down. The greens and purples were brilliant beyond belief; a blue haze covered the distant hills; woodland and pasture glimmered in the valleys. The faint chiming of the bells of Roxton stirred the air as Kate Murchison walked the garden before the cottage, looking like one who had been awake all night beside a sick-bed. Her face betrayed lines of exhaustion, a dulling of the natural freshness, streaks of shadow under the eyes. She had that half-blind expression, the expression of those whose thoughts are engrossed by sorrow; the trick of seeing without comprehending the significance of the things about her.

She turned suddenly by the gate, and stood looking over the down. The very brilliancy of the summer coloring almost hurt her tired eyes. A familiar sound drowned the Roxton chiming as she listened, and brought a sharp twinge of anxiety to her face. Rounding the pine woods the rakish outline of her husband’s car showed up over the banks of gorse between the cottage and the high-road. The machine came panting over the down, leaving a drifting trail of dust to sully the sunlight. Catherine caught her breath with impatient dread. This day of all days, when defeat was heavy on her husband! Could they not let him rest? If these selfish sick folk only knew!

Dr. Inglis’s gold-rimmed pince-nez glittered nervously over the fence. He was a spare, boyish-looking fellow, with twine-colored hair, weak eyes, and a mouth that attempted resolute precision. Catherine hated him for the moment as he lifted his hat, and opened the gate with a deprecating and colorless smile. Dr. Inglis had the air of a young man much worried, one whose self-esteem had been severely ruffled, and who had been forbidden sleep and a hearty breakfast.

“Good-morning. A mean thing, I’m sure, to bother Dr. Murchison, but really—”

Catherine met him, looking straight and stanch in contrast to the theorist’s faded feebleness.

“What is the matter?”

“Mr. Baxter, of Boland’s Farm, is seriously ill. An obscure case. His wife wishes—”

Catherine foreshadowed what was to come. The assistant appeared to have suffered at the hands of anxious and nagging relatives.

“Well?”

“A serious case, I’m afraid. I am sure Dr. Murchison would not wish me to assume all the responsibility. The wife, Mrs. Baxter, is rather an excitable woman—”

His apologetics would have been amusing at any other season. Catherine bit her lip ............