Another word
followed which Tilda could not catch.

"Four o'clock, or may be earlier," she promised.

"L--l--lozenges," the tongue babbled.

Tilda glanced towards the medicine table.

"Diamonds," said the voice with momentary firmness; "four
diamonds . . . on his coat . . . his father's . . . his . . . ."

"Four diamonds, yes?" the child repeated.

"Ned did them . . . he told me . . . told me . . . ." But here the voice
wavered and trailed off into babble, meaningless as a year-old infant's.
Tilda listened hard for a minute, two minutes, then dropped her head
back on her pillow as the door-handle rattled. It was the Second Nurse
returning for night duty.

Early next morning the doctor came--a thin young man with a stoop, and a
crop of sandy hair that stood upright from his forehead. Tilda detested
him.

He and the Second Nurse talked apart for quite a long while, and paid no
attention to the child, who lay shamming a doze, but with her ears open.

She heard the doctor say--

"She? Oh, move her to the far end of the ward."

The Second Nurse muttered something, and he went on--

"She is well, practically. All she wants now is someone to keep an eye
on her, make her lie up for a couple of hours every day, and box her
ears if she won't."

"That's me," thought Tilda. "I'm to be moved out of the way because
t'other's going to die; and if she's going to die, there's no time to be
lost."

She stirred, lifted her head, and piped--

"Doctor!"

"Hullo, imp! I thought you were sleeping."

"So I was. I sleep 'eaps better now." She drew her hurt leg up and
down in the bed. "Doctor, I 'd be all right, certain sure, if you let
me out for arf-an-hour. Sister let me sit out for ever so long
yestiday, an' while she was dustin' out the men's ward I practised
walkin'--all the lenth of the room an' back."

"When I told you never, on any account!" the Sister scolded.

"If I'd only the loan of a crutch!" pleaded Tilda; "an' it couldn' do me
no 'arm in this weather."

"Pining for liberty, hey?" said the doctor. (She saw what was passing
through his mind, and despised him for it.) "Well, suppose, now, we let
you out for just half an hour?"

Tilda clapped her palms together, and her eyes shone. To herself she
said: "Kiddin' of me, that's what they are. Want to get me out of the
way while they shift the beddin'. Lemme get back my clothes, that's
all, an' I'll teach him about pinin' for liberty."

"But,