rses, the weary cough or
plethoric breathing, the feeble convalescent laughter,--these greeted
me; and only these. Like the light that entered at the window, or the
air that circulated through the ward, I passed unnoticed and unthanked.
Some one called out petulantly that a door had got unfastened, and bade
a nurse go shut it, for it blew on her. But when I came up to the
bedside of this poor woman, I saw that she was crying.

"She's cried herself half-dead," a nurse said, complainingly. "Nobody
can stop her. She's taking on so for Dr. Thorne."

"I don't blame her," said a little patient from a wheeled-chair.
"Everybody knows what he did for her. She's got one of her
attacks,--and look at her! There can't anybody but him stop it.
Whatever we're going to do without the doctor"--

Her own lip quivered, though she was getting well.

"I don't see how the doctor _could_ die!" moaned the very sick woman,
weeping afresh, "when there's those that nobody but him can keep alive.
It hadn't oughter to be let to be. How are sick folks going to get
along without their doctor? It ain't _right_!"

"Lord have mercy on ye, poor creetur," said an old lady from the
opposite cot. "Don't take on so. It don't _help_ it any. It ain't
agoing to bring the doctor back!"

Sobs arose at this. I could hear them from more beds than I cared to
count. Sorrow sat heavily in the ward for my sake. It distressed me
to think of the effect of all this depression upon the nervous systems
of these poor people. I passed from case to case, and watched the
ill-effects of the general gloom with a sense of professional
disappointment which only physicians will understand as coming
uppermost in a man's mind under circumstances such as these.

My discomfort was increased by the evidences of what I considered
mistakes in treatment on the part of my colleagues; some of which had
peculiarly disagreed with certain patients since my death had thrown
them into other hands. My helplessness before these facts chafed me
sorely.

I made no futile effort to make myself known to any of the hospital
patients. I had learned too well the limitations of my new condition
now. I had in no wise learned to bear them. In truth, I think I bore
them less, for my knowledge that these poor creatures did truly love
me, and leaned on me, and mourned for me; I found it hard. I think it
even occurred to me that a dead man might not be able to bear it to see
his wife