. If he should enter her
room--she felt in the darkness for her dressing-gown. It was not on the
chair beside her bed. She moved hastily, and blundered against a table.
She felt for the foot of the bed. The dressing-gown was not there. Her
brain was on fire. Where was her dressing-gown? She tried to button the
night-dress over her palpitating breast, but abandoned it to throw back
her head and gather her golden hair away from her shoulders and breast.
All this in the dark, in the safe dusk of her own room.... Where was
her dressing-gown? Where was her maid? Why should she be at such a
disadvantage! She reached for the table again and found a match-box.
She would strike a light, and find her dressing-gown. Then she abruptly
remembered that she had no dressing-gown with her; that she had
travelled with one single bag--little more than a hand-bag--and it
contained only the emergency equipment of a nurse. She had brought no
dressing-gown; only the light outer rain-proof coat which should serve
a double purpose. She had forgotten for a moment that she was not in
her own house, that she was an army-woman, living a soldier's life. She
felt her way to the wall, found the rain-proof coat, and, with
trembling fingers, put it on. As she did so a wave of weakness passed
over her, and she swayed as though she would fall; but she put a hand
on herself and fought her growing agitation.

She turned towards the bed, but stopped abruptly, because she heard
footsteps in the hall outside--footsteps she knew, footsteps which for
years had travelled towards her, day and night, with eagerness; the
quick, urgent footsteps of a man of decision, of impulse, of
determination. It was Rudyard's footsteps outside her door, Rudyard's
voice speaking to some one; then Rudyard's footsteps pausing; and
afterwards a dead silence. She felt his presence; she imagined his hand
upon her door. With a little smothered gasp, she made a move forward as
though to lock the door; then she remembered that it had no lock. With
strained and startled eyes, she kept her gaze turned on the door,
expecting to see it open before her. Her heart beat so hard she could
hear it pounding against her breast, and her temples were throbbing.

The silence was horrible to her. Her agitation culminated. She could
bear it no longer. Blindly she ran to another door which led into the
sitting-room of the matron, used for many purposes--the hold-all of the
odds and ends of the hospital l