"Steady, Jane, steady. They have to hurt him a little, dear."
"Jerry, talk to me. I'm afraid of my thoughts," she whispered to him.
He saw she was nearly beside herself, so he forced himself to tell her all the trivial happenings since her departure. Stories about Billy Biggs, the conversation at one of the Brendons' dinners, the account of the Bryce child's latest escapade. He heard his voice going on and on, he saw Jane's frantic effort to listen to him, yet he knew that his real self was indoors with those low-voiced men, who were trying to hold the fine, silken thread of life in their sensitive fingers.
Presently Doctor Grant stepped to the door and spoke to them. Jerry's hand led Jane toward him. They were like very little children stumbling to him for help. He seemed so steady and sure.
"We're going to put in the tube. Don't be alarmed. It isn't too painful, but I wanted you to know."
He turned back into the room. Jerry put his arms about Jane, but to his touch she felt like stone. She did not cling to him--she leaned on him, stiff and cold. It seemed ages that they stood so, punctuated by one scream of pain from Baby, then silence! Jane shuddered and Jerry's arms tightened. The night and the busy village below were blotted out. They two stood together in a chaos of pain.
"Bring her in now and let her look at him," he said.
Jerry watched the perspiration run down Doctor Grant's face unnoticed by him.
Then he gently loosed Jane, turned her, and led her in to the bedside.
Little Jerry, still flushed, but at peace, lay breathing gently. The nurse and the doctor smiled at them.
"Wonderful operation of Doctor Grant's. Never saw it better done," said his colleague.
Jerry nodded, but Jane paid no attention to any of them. She laid her hand on the Bald One's damp forehead, she lifted his hands one after the other, adjusted the covers, mechanically. Then she lifted an age-old face to them all.
"God heard me," she said, and slipped into unconsciousness.
For several days Jane lay in her bed, looking like a wax woman, too weak to lift her hand. Doctor Grant ordered her to stay just where she was until she wanted to get up.
"She's the kind that goes through hell without flinching, and collapses at the sight of heaven," he said to Jerry. "Keep her quiet; it's a complete nervous collapse, but she's got a fine constitution and she'll come around quickly."