Joan had found a liking gradually growing up in her for the quick-moving,
curt-tongued doctor. She had dismissed him at first as a mere butcher:
his brutal haste, his indifference apparently to the suffering he was
causing, his great, strong, hairy hands, with their squat fingers, his
cold grey eyes. But she learnt as time went by, that his callousness was
a thing that he put on at the same time that he tied his white apron
round his waist, and rolled up his sleeves.
She was resting, after a morning of grim work, on a bench outside the
hospital, struggling with clenched, quivering hands against a craving to
fling herself upon the ground and sob. And he had found her there; and
had sat down beside her.
"So you wanted to see it with your own eyes," he said. He laid his hand
upon her shoulder, and she had some difficulty in not catching hold of
him and clinging to him. She was feeling absurdly womanish just at that
moment.
"Yes," she answered. "And I'm glad that I did it," she added, defiantly.
"So am I," he said. "Tell your children what you have seen.
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