ts glories are fading. That also is
for the best. I have my Koh-i-noor--my desire to depart and surrender my
life to God. John Storm."

"Anything wrong, nurse? Feeling ill, ain't ye? Only dizzy a bit?
Unpleasant news from home, perhaps?"

"No, something else. Let me sit in your room, porter."

She read the letter again and again, until the words seemed blurred and
the lines irregular as a spider's web. Then she thought: "We can not part
forever like this. I must see him again whatever happens. Perhaps he has
not yet gone."

It was now half-past eight and time to go on duty, but she went upstairs
to Sister Allworthy and asked for an hour's further leave. The request
was promptly refused. She went downstairs to the matron and asked for
half an hour, only that she might see a friend away on a long journey,
and that was refused too. Then she tightened her quivering lips, returned
to the porter's room, fixed her bonnet on before the scratched
pier-glass, and boldly walked out of the hospital.

It was now quite dark and the fashionable dinner hour of Belgravia, and
as she hurried through the streets many crested and coroneted carriages
drew up at the great mansions and discharged their occupants in evening
dress. The canon's house was brilliantly lighted, and when the door was
opened in answer to her knock she could see the canon himself at the head
of his own detachment of diners coming downstairs with a lady in white
silk chatting affably on his arm.

"Is Mr. Storm at home?"

The footman, in powdered wig and white cotton gloves, answered haltingly.
"If it is--er--anything about the hospital, miss, Mr.--er--Golightly will
attend."

"No, it is Mr. Storm himself I wish to see."

"Gorn!" said the footman, and he shut the door in her face.

She had an impulse to hammer on the door with her hand, and command the
flunky to go down on his knees and beg her pardon. But what was the good?
She had no time to think of herself now.

As a last resource she would go to Bishopsgate. How dense the traffic
seemed to be at Victoria! She had never felt so helpless before.

It was better in the city, and as she walked eastward, in the direction
indicated by a policeman, every step brought her into quieter streets.
She was now in that part of London which is the world's busiest
market-place by day, but is shut up and deserted at night. Her light
footsteps echoed against the shutters of the shops. The moon had risen,
and she coul