ful.

"We can stop the pain, you know," she said "Is that what you want?"

The steady unwinking eyes answered "No" again, and to add emphasis to
it the bandaged head shook slowly from side to side on the pillow.

The Sister was puzzled; she could find out what he wanted, of course,
she was confident of that; but it might take some time and many
questions, and time just then was something that she or no one else in
the big clearing hospital could find enough of for the work in their
hands. Even then urgent work was calling her; so she left him,
promising to come again as soon as she could.

She spoke to the doctor, and presently he came back with her to the
bedside. "It's marvelous," he said in a low tone to the Sister, "that
he has held on to life so long."

Private Ruthven's wounds had been dressed there on arrival, before he
woke out of the morphia sleep, and the doctor had seen and knew.

"There is nothing we can do for him," he said, "except morphia again,
to ease him out of his pain."

But again the boy, his brow wrinkling with the effort, attempted with
his bandaged hand to stay the needle in the doctor's fingers.

"I'm sure," said the Sister, "he doesn't want the morphia; he told me
so, didn't you?" appealing to the boy.

The eyes shut and gripped tight in an emphatic answer, and the Sister
explained their code.

"Listen!" she said gently. "The doctor will only give you enough to
make you sleep for two or three hours, and then I shall have time to
come and talk to you. Will that do!"

The unmoving eyes answered "No" again, and the doctor stood up.

"If he can bear it, Sister," he said, "we may as well leave him. I
can't understand it, though. I know how those wounds must hurt."

They left him then, and he lay for another couple of hours, his eyes
set on the canvas roof above his head, dropped for an instant to any
passing figure, lifting again to their fixed position. The eyes and the
mute appeal in them haunted the Sister, and half a dozen times, as she
moved about the beds, she flitted over to him, just to drop a word that
she had not forgotten and she was coming presently.

"You want me to talk to you, don't you?" she said. "There is something
you want me to find out?"

"Yes--yes--yes," said the quickly flickering eyelids.

The Sister read the label that was tied to him when he was brought in.
She asked questions round the ward of those who were able to answer
them, and sent an orderly to ma