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Hugh had refused help then. He would not be a burden to Uncle Ben. He’d gotten a football scholarship. He played adequate but uninspired football for three years, getting all the pre-med he could, and working as a janitor to pay for the small room he rented.
    Then the Army. When he returned home, the hunger was greater.
    Uncle Ben said, “Now let me help you, Hugh. You can’t waste more time. Medical school will take all your time…”
    He worked, earning what he could when he could at whatever he could find. He went to school the year around. Uncle Ben helped him. It wasn’t nearly enough. But somehow it worked out. He made it. Uncle Ben, white-haired now and thin, cried the day he graduated.
    Then came internship and residency. He knew, of course, what kind of doctor he wanted to be by then: the best kind of surgeon. The power of the desire was so great that it frightened him.
    He took long and hard walks at night, wondering at the flames inside him. Once, in the blackness of a cold winter night, he felt the flames might explode and disintegrate him, leaving nothing but a flashing brilliance in the night, then only blackness. That was the first time he got really drunk, waking up in the cheap room of a girl with whom he could not remember being. He was spent and dry and shaking…
    Uncle Ben was behind him always. “It’s right for you, Hugh. Being a good surgeon. I’ve talked to doctors who work with you. They believe in you.”
    And Hugh had replied, “It’s more study and more money, Uncle Ben. It’s for somebody else. I’ve got to pay you back now—”
    But Uncle Ben had insisted. And the hunger was great.
    New York then. The finest specialists in the profession. The final, truest training, the honing of a talent to razor’s edge.
    He’d worked harder than ever before, the fire steadying to a red-coal glow. He’d worked with a dedication that allowed for nothing but work, using the money from Uncle Ben without questioning.
    Then that final specialized training was almost over. He’d reached a zenith; they would use him for one of the most important operations any young colleague of these professional masters had ever performed in the clinic, proof of his achievement. Uncle Ben would, at last, realize the fruits of his belief and help.
    But the red-coal glow was again fanned into flames the night before the operation. Uncle Ben died. He died almost penniless, having given Hugh all he could and more. He died without knowing the final victory.
    Once again Hugh Stewart gave in to the flames. He woke up in a jail cell this time, five hours after Dr. Emil Ludgaard himself had successfully performed the operation Hugh Stewart was to have performed. He woke up black-minded and exhausted, empty and grim.
    “It’s all right, Hugh,” Dr. Ludgaard had said, his tired blue eyes avoiding Hugh’s. “You broke up that tavern terribly. They’ll raise hell at the clinic. But I’ll smooth things.” Dr. Ludgaard, like Uncle Ben, would not let him down. “These things happen, Hugh. You thought a great deal of your uncle.”
    “No,” Hugh said. “It was more than that. It was—”
    He had not been able to explain. He didn’t know. It was simply that finally he no longer trusted himself. The flames would steady to coals, but they did not cool and die. They were always waiting. The kind of talent he now owned was not a talent to be offered unreliably.
    He’d decided. He would settle for being a general practitioner. A country doctor. Not a specialized surgeon. This would demand all his energy. The work would come at him in a steady stream. But it would not be likely to build to excruciating delicacy. A country doctor’s duties required of a man all his general medical ability, but it was not often channeled to that final thin blade. In emergency that could be left to others.
    But now here he was. Out of touch with all he’d learned in the clinic. Out of touch with Emil Ludgaard. Lost in the center of a