t, sister," she
said. "He must not be left for a moment. I am sorry to wake you so
soon, but will you go to him?"

She was so used to being alert and ready at the call of duty, that she
forgot her plan had been to escape from the hospital at once, and in a
minute was again in the private ward. The doctor was standing beside
the bed, and Sister Marion saw he had been recalled because of the
urgency of the case. For whatever reason, it was such a pleasure to see
him again, to let her eyes rest upon the strong and kind and clever
face--

And then, looking at him, she saw that down the broad brow and the
clean-shaven cheek red blood was streaming.

He put up his hand to wipe the blood from his eyes, and the hand too,
she saw, was gashed and bleeding.

He laughed at her look of surprise and horror. "This gentleman had a
penknife under his pillow," he explained. "I have taken care that he
does not do any more mischief."

He nodded in the direction of the patient, and Sister Marion, glancing
that way, saw that the man lying on his back had his hands tied to the
iron bed-rail above his head. In the reaction from the late attack he
was lying absolutely still, and she saw, to her surprise, that in the
eyes fixed on her face there was recognition.

"He is conscious," she whispered. "Come outside and let me attend to
you."

He followed her to the ward kitchen, the room used by the nurses for
the preparation of the patients' food, but empty now.

The doctor smiled and jested, but the blood flowed, the wound smarted,
he was a little pale.

"He _meant_ to hurt you?" she asked, through her set teeth.

"He meant to murder me, the brute!" the doctor said.

"Never mind," she soothed him; "I am accountable for him now. I will
see to it he never hurts you again."

She felt herself to be a different woman; in some curious way
emancipated. It had needed just the wounding of this man to change her.
She was ashamed no longer to show him what she felt, nor had she any
more a shrinking from doing what she now believed it right to do.

She stood above him as he sat in a new docility before her, and bathed
the cut upon his temple, with lingering, tender touch, pushing back the
hair to get at it. She knelt before him and dressed the cut upon his
hand.

"I managed to do this myself in trying to get the knife away from him,"
the doctor explained.

With his unwounded hand he took an ivory-handled penknife, stained red
with blood, f