Part 72 (1/2)

”Why, you ain't going to give out, are you?” said Miss Yates in a concerned voice. ”You've gone a little beyond your tether.”

”Not at all,” said I; ”not at all. I am only not hungry. I will go back, if you please, to something I _can_ do.”

I busied myself restlessly about the ward, till one of the men, I forget who, asked me to sing to them. It had become a standing ordinance of the place; and people said, a very beneficial one. But to-night I had not thought I could sing.

Yet when he asked me, the power came. I did not sit down 'as usual;' standing at the foot of Mr. Thorold's bed I sang, leaning hard against strength and love out of sight; and my voice was as clear as ever.

The ward was so very still that I should have thought nothing could come in or go out without my being conscious of a stir.

However, the absolute hush continued, until it occurred to me that I must have been singing a great while, and I half turned and glanced down the room. My singing was done; for there stood Dr. Sandford, as still as I had been, with folded arms near the door. I went towards him immediately.

”Do you have this sort of concert most evenings?” he inquired, as he took my hand.

”Always, Dr. Sandford.”

”I never heard you sing so well anywhere else,” he remarked.

”I never had such an audience. But now, you remember my request this morning, Dr. Sandford?”

”I never forget your requests,” he said, gravely. And we went to business.

From one to another, from one to another. Generally with no more but a pleasant or a kind word from the doctor to the patient; but two or three times the doctor's hand came to his chin for a moment, before such a word was spoken. - It did not in those cases tell me much. I had known, or guessed, the truth of them before. I suppose every good nurse must get a power or faculty of reading symptoms and seeing the state of the patient, both actual and probable. I was not shocked nor startled. But the shock and the start were all the greater, when pausing before the one cot which held what I cared for in this world, the doctor's fingers were thrust suddenly through his thick auburn hair. He went on immediately with the due attention to Mr. Thorold's wounds; and I waited and stood by, with no outward sign, I think, of the death at my heart. Even through all the round, I kept my place by Dr. Sandford's side, doing whatever was wanted of me, attending, at least in outward guise, to what was going on. So one can do, while the whole soul and life are concentrated on some point unconnected with it all, outside of it all, in the distance. Towards that point I slowly made my way, as the doctor went through his rounds; and came up with it at last in the little retiring room which he called his own and where our conversation of the morning had been held.

”I see how little I know, Dr. Sandford,” I remarked.

”Ay?” said he. ”I had been thinking rather the other way.”

”You surprised me very much - with the one touch of your hair.”

The doctor was silent.

”I should have thought - in my ignorance - several others more likely to have called for it.”

”Thorold is the only one,” said the doctor.

”How is it?”

”The injuries are internal and complicated; and beyond reach.”

The doctor had been was.h.i.+ng his hands, and I was now was.h.i.+ng mine; and with my face so turned away from him, I went on.

”He does not seem to suffer much.”

”Doesn't he?” said the doctor.

”Should he?”

”He should, if he has not good power of self-control. No man in the ward suffers as he does. I have noticed, he hides it well.”

I was was.h.i.+ng my hands. I remember my wringing the water from them; then I remember no more. When I knew anything again, I was lying on an old sofa that stood in the doctor's room, and he was putting water or brandy - I hardly know what - on my face. With a face of his own that was pale, I saw even then, without seeing it, as it bent over me. He was speaking my name. I struggled for breath and tried to raise myself. He gently put me back.

”Lie still,” he said. ”Are you better?”