At the end of his troubled day he almost cursed the salad as it crinkled in the dish just slightly rubbed with garlic.

He was turning away in apathy from it--from the bones with the marrow oozing out of the ends, from the bursting baked potatoes, from the beautiful crusts of brown bread, when he heard the door-bell ring.

At the sound his face set as though it were mortar.
He wanted no patients this night; but from the peremptory sound of the bell he was sure some one had come who needed medicine or the knife, and he could refuse neither; for was he not at everybody's beck and call, the Medicine Man whose door was everybody's door! "Damnation!" he said aloud, and turned towards the door expectantly.
Then he bitted himself to wait; and he did not wait long.

Presently he heard a voice say, "I must see him," and the door opened wide, and Louise Mazarine stepped into the room.

Her face was pale and distraught; her blue eyes, with their long, melancholy lashes, stared at him in appealing apprehension.