The doctor looked at his watch.
"It's eleven o'clock," he said. "I'll operate at the hospital at one-thirty. You'll get no lunch today, my handsome lad."
Nor did he.
He made no protest; accepted the operation and the delay in his hopes with that new stoicism of his, fixed Kay firmly in his mind as he went under the ether, made frantic efforts to reach her as she began to slip away
"Tom, you young idiot! Hold him, somebody!"
And came out to find himself kissing the hand of a strange elderly nurse, to be saved from any embarrassment by being instantly deadly sick.
Recovery was harder for him. He was not ruined; save for a small amount of unthrifty stock his cattle were on the range growing fat, filling out their lean flanks, their hollow backs. But the days were endless, the nights interminable. Life had become one long waiting, for some fulfillment of which he hardly dared to think. He slept as much as he could, to pass the time away. And he had needed sleep.
Sometimes the nurses brought him books and he tried to read them. Kay liked books and books could learn—teach—a fellow a lot if he kept at them. But his eyes would close, the volume would drop on his chest. Occasionally, as he had in Jake's cabin, he dreamed that Kay herself was in the room, or beside him in the bed. Once indeed he flung out his arm, after his old fashion, and it touched something; but it was Clare, sitting beside him with a bunch of garden flowers in her hand.
He stared at her, still half asleep, and she bent over and kissed him.
"There!" she said. "I guess that didn't hurt you any!"
"Oh, for God's sake quit it, Clare!"
She only laughed, and hid her flowers on the bed.
"What's the use of acting like a spoiled child, Tom? You did me as much harm as I did you."
"I never did you any harm. You lied, that's all."
She only smiled. But she did not stay very long, and
