Braden Thorpe realised that he would have to pay, one way or another, for what had happened in the operating room.

Either his honour or his skill would be attacked for the course his knife had taken.
The day after his grandfather's death, he went to the office of Dr.Bates, the deposed family physician and adviser.

He did not go in a cringing, apologetic spirit, but as one unafraid, as one who is justified within himself and fears not the report of evil.

His heart was sore, for he knew he was to be misjudged.

Those men who looked on while he worked so swiftly, so surely, so skilfully in that never-to-be-forgotten hour, were not to be deceived.