What mattered
who or what HE was? It was--a case!
The operation began. With the same earnest intelligence that she had
previously shown, she quickly and noiselessly obeyed the doctor's
whispered orders, and even half anticipated them. She was conscious of a
singular curiosity that, far from being mean or ignoble, seemed to lift
her not only above the ordinary weaknesses of her own sex, but made her
superior to the men around her. Almost before she knew it, the operation
was over, and she regarded with equal curiosity the ostentatious
solicitude with which the doctor seemed to be wiping his fateful
instrument that bore an odd resemblance to a silver-handled centre-bit.
The stertorous breathing below the bandages had given way to a fainter
but more natural respiration. There was a moment of suspense. The
doctor's hand left the pulse and lifted the closed eyelid of the
sufferer. A slight movement passed over the figure. The sluggish face
had cleared; life seemed to struggle back into it before even the dull
eyes participated in the glow.
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