Part 21 (2/2)

She reminds me of the ht have pointed to the convoy and suggested comparisons; but one cannot rub a sore back

Soht

When I ca a pile of dust along the long boards to the door The poor cah she had never existed; either she is ill or she is banished

Such is the secret diplo is known of her except her disappearance--at least a those whom one can ask Matron knows, Sister knows But these are the inscrutable, s Gods

There is only one man in the ward I don't much care for--a tall boy with a lock of fair hair and broken teeth He was a sullen boy whose bad temper made his mouth repulsive I say ”was,” for he is different now

Now he is feeble, gentle, grateful, and he smiles as often as one looks at hi, and in the afternoon when I caroan Sister told me to sit beside him

I went up to the little roo a wooden chair, I slipped it in between the screen and the bed and sat down

Is it the ether which rushes up frolare of the turkey-twill screens?--but in ten minutes I as is changed The screens, high enough to blot out a h to blot out the world The narrow bed becomes a field of whiteness The naked arm stretched towards ed to a boy with dirty fair hair and broken teeth; it has sea-green veins rising along it, and the bright hairs are oes on, the clatter of cups for supper, the shuffling of feet clad in loose carpet-slippers, but here within he and I are living together a concentrated life

”Oh, etting to know For while theether I kno the waves of the pain come up and recede; how a little sleep just brushes the spirit, but never absorbs it; how the arle up to the air, only to be covered and en?” (He pronounces the ”g”--a Lancashi+re boy)

”The shrapnel?”

He nods I hold up the piece of metal which has lain buried in hiraved on it That satisfies him The blood which has coh for hih the crack in the screens the ht o'clock Here is Sister with the syringe: he will sleep now and I can go hoet the hospital when one leaves it, life wouldn't be very nice

Froone to another hospital these five weeks, returned to-day, saying miserably as he walked into the ward, ”Me 'ead's queerer than ever” His eyes, I think, are larger too, and he has still that ht so for hi the smallest of tablets to hi spent”

Waker had a birthday yesterday and got ten post cards and a telegra to another anniversary

”A year to-”

”Shall you be awake, Waker?”

”Yes”