"Aorta" and "aneurism" held about as much significance for him as his perichondrium or the process of his stylomastoid.

But Kent possessed an unswerving passion to grip at facts in detail, a characteristic that had largely helped him to earn the reputation of being the best man-hunter in all the northland service.
So he had insisted, and his surgeon friend had explained.
The aorta, he found, was the main blood-vessel arching over and leading from the heart, and in nicking it the bullet had so weakened its outer wall that it bulged out in the form of a sack, just as the inner tube of an automobile tire bulges through the outer casing when there is a blowout.
"And when that sack gives way inside you," Cardigan had explained, "you'll go like that!" He snapped a forefinger and thumb to drive the fact home.
After that it was merely a matter of common sense to believe, and now, sure that he was about to die.

Kent had acted.

He was acting in the full health of his mind and in extreme cognizance of the paralyzing shock he was contributing as a final legacy to the world at large, or at least to that part of it which knew him or was interested.

The tragedy of the thing did not oppress him.