a door opposite was also open, with an arched verandah outside; the low
sun streamed through this upon the floor with its usual tranquillity.
Beyond the arches, netted to keep the crows away, it made pictures with
the tops of the trees. There was the small iron bed with the confused
outline under the bedclothes, very quiet, and the Sister--the
whitewashed wall rose sharp behind her black draperies--sitting with a
book in her hands. Some scraps of lint on the floor beside the bed, and
hardly anything else except the silence which had almost a presence, and
a faint smell of carbolic acid, and a certain feeling of impotence and
abandonment and waiting which seemed to be in the air. Arnold moved on
the pillow and saw her standing in the door. The bars of the bed's foot
were in the way, he tried to lift his head to surmount the obstruction,
and the Sister perceived her too.

"I think absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, Mr. Arnold?" she
said, with her little pink smile. "And I'm afraid Miss Howe isn't in
time to be of much use to us, is she?" It was the bedside pleasantry
that expected no reply, that indeed forbade one.

"I'm sorry," Hilda said. As she moved into the room she detached her
eyes from Arnold's, feeling as she did so that it was like tearing
something.

"There was so little to do," Sister Margaret said; "Surgeon-Major Wills
saw at once where the mischief lay. Nothing disagreeable was necessary,
was it, Mr. Arnold? Perfect quiet, perfect rest--that's an easy
prescription to take." She had rather prominent very blue eyes, and
an aquiline nose, and a small firm mouth, and her pink cheeks were
beginning to be a little pendulous with age. Hilda gazed at her
silently, noting about her authority and her flowing draperies something
classical. Was she like one of the Fates? She approached the bed to do
something to the pillow--Hilda had an impulse to push her away with the
cry, "It is not time yet--Atropos!"

"I must go now for an hour or so," the Sister went on. "That poor
creature in Number Six needs me; they daren't give her any more morphia.
You don't need it--happy boy!" she said to Stephen, and at the look he
sent her for answer she turned rather quickly to the door. Dear Sister,
she was none of the Fates, she was obliged to give directions to Hilda
standing in the door with her back turned. Happily for a deserved
reputation for self-command they were few. It was chief and absolute
that no one should be