human
Do you mean, Rose, his words came slowly,
gpt
I just couldn't bear to have her die. She is all that ... that Judd has got in the world, now, and I knew that you could save her for him.
human
It's all right, little doctor. I'm glad that you did, and only hope that I can help. Now, let's all sit down here before the fire--how good it feels after that bitter ride, doesn't it, Miss Merriman?--and you will tell me all that you can about the baby's trouble--every single thing that you have noticed from the first, no matter how little it is. You see, that only by knowing exactly how the patient has acted can the surgeon even hope to guess where the trouble has its seat. Once before I told you that a nurse has got to face the truth, understandingly and bravely, and I may as well tell you about some of the difficulties which lie in the path that we must tread to-night. Your faith has been almost--sublime, dear. I wonder if it would have failed if you had known how like a child in knowledge--a child searching in the dark--is a surgeon at such a time as this?
gpt
I ... I don't believe that I understand, and you kind of frightened me, Don. I thought that all you would have to do would be to ... to cut out that awful thing that is stealing away Lou's precious life. Wasn't that what you did for that other little child?
human
Yes, but ... how am I going to explain? If there is a tumor, as we think, I'll do my best to take it away; but, in order to do that, I have, of course, got to go inside of her skull right to the brain itself, and the trouble might be here, or here, or here. He touched her now profusion of curls at different cranial points.
gpt
That is the riddle which you and I must solve, and I have got to look to you for the key. The human brain is still a book of mystery to us. Some day, physicians will be able to read it with full understanding; but so far, we have, after thousands of years, barely learned how to open its covers and guess at the meaning of what lies hidden within.