Bathsheba looked full of gratitude, and she said:-- "Oh, Gabriel, how could you serve me so unkindly!" Such a tenderly-shaped reproach for his previous delay was the one speech in the language that he could pardon for not being commendation of his readiness now.
Gabriel murmured a confused reply, and hastened on.

She knew from the look which sentence in her note had brought him.

Bathsheba followed to the field.
Gabriel was already among the turgid, prostrate forms.

He had flung off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and taken from his pocket the instrument of salvation.

It was a small tube or trochar, with a lance passing down the inside; and Gabriel began to use it with a dexterity that would have graced a hospital surgeon.