The words that troubled her most, perhaps, were the doctor's, "She is a brave lass, but it must be in her blood." They were not intended for her ears, but she heard.

"What did he mean ?" she asked Miss Ailie, Mrs.Dishart, and others who came to see her, and they replied awkwardly, that it had only been a doctor's remark, of no importance to people who were well.

"Then why are you crying ?" she demanded, looking them full in the face with eyes there was no deceiving.
"Oh, why is everyone afraid to tell me the truth!" she would cry, beating her palms in anguish.
She walked into McQueen's surgery and said, "Could you not cut it out ?" so abruptly that he wondered what she was speaking about.
"The bad thing that is in my blood," she explained.

"Do cut it out, I sha'n't scream.

I promise not to scream." He sighed and answered, "If it could be cut out, lassie, I would try to do it, though it was the most dangerous of operations." She looked in anguish at him.