a good deal for half a dozen fully trained
nurses just now. Suppose you send her to relieve Miss Jennings. She can't
do any harm to number twenty-nine."

"Isn't there any hope for him?" the nurse asked, a shade of sadness in
her eyes.

"I'm afraid not!" said the doctor shortly. "He won't take any interest in
living, that's the trouble. He isn't dying of his wounds. Something is
troubling him. But it's no use trying to find out what. He shuts up like
a clam."

The new nurse flushed outside the door as she heard herself discussed and
shut her firm little lips in a determined way as she followed the head
nurse down the long rows of cots to an alcove at the end where a screen
shut the patient from view.

Miss Jennings, a plain girl with tired eyes, gave a few directions and
she was left with her patient. She turned toward the cot and stopped with
a soft gasp of recognition, her face growing white and set as she took in
the dear familiar outline of the fine young face before her. Every word
she had heard outside the doctor's office rang distinctly in her ears. He
was dying. He did not want to live. With another gasp that was like a sob
she slipped to her knees beside the cot, forgetful of her duties, of the
ward outside, or the possible return of the nurses, forgetful of
everything but that he was there, her hero of the years!

She reached for one of his hands, the one that was not bandaged, and she
laid her soft cheek against it, and held her breath to listen. Perhaps
even now behind that quiet face the spirit had departed beyond her grasp.

There was no flutter of the eyelids even. She could not see that he still
breathed, although his hand was not cold, and his face when she touched
it still seemed human. She drew closer in an agony of fear, and laid her
lips against his cheek, and then her face softly, with one hand about his
other cheek. Her lips were close to his ear now.

"John!" she whispered softly, "John! My dear knight!"

There was a quiver of the eyelids now, a faint hesitating sigh. She
touched her lips to his and spoke his name again. A faint smile flickered
over his features as if he were seeing other worlds of beauty that had no
connection here. But still she continued to press her face against his
cheek and whisper his name.

At last he opened his eyes, with a bewildered, wondering gaze and saw
her. The old dear smile broke forth:

"Ruth! You here? Is this--heaven?"

"Not yet," she whispered so