into that ward I went to tell the news to the matron. Perhaps when my
duty was done I did not hurry overmuch to return to my own less
interesting post; and I was still in the principal ward when the canvas
litter borne by four Red Cross men was carried in. Doctors and nurses
pressed forward to meet it, and I flattened myself against the wall,
sick with mingled fear and longing. Again I thought, _what if_ ...

The big room which a week ago had been the restaurant of our prosperous
hotel annex was still lit by electric lamps fantastically unsuited to a
hospital ward: chandeliers of sprawling gilt branches decorated with
metallic imitations of mistletoe. The light of day outside was filtering
in but dimly, yet it paled and made ghastly the yellowish glow of
electricity. Even the doctors and nurses with their tired faces looked
like ghosts, and the wounded soldiers in their narrow white cots seemed
figures of dead men modelled in wax. Some of them opened their eyes, in
deep violet hollows; others kept the lids down, caring for or conscious
of nothing. The staff who received the litter, and the Red Cross men who
brought it, spoke in low voices, but never in irritating whispers. The
moving feet made only a faint pattering sound on the linoleum-covered
floor, and the litter was set down noiselessly at the side of the one
free bed in the ward. Near it stood a screen which only a few hours ago
had hidden the death agony of a soldier. I looked at this and shuddered,
thinking once again, "_What if it were he!_" and if the screen should be
needed again for the same purpose.

Where I lurked, out of every one's way, yet close to the door, flat as a
paper doll, against the wall which smelled of carbolic acid, nobody
troubled about me. I was just one of the younger nurses, and none
stopped to ask whether my place were there or upstairs in another ward.

"Oh God, if it be he, let him live!" I heard my soul praying.

Nurses leaned over the long dark form on the litter, whose face I could
not see, because where I stood only the top of the head was visible, a
head thickly covered with short rumpled hair, which might be blond or
brown when the blood stains were washed off. The bending figures
quickly, skilfully cut away the stained and blackened clothing, and when
it was the surgeon's turn to examine and perhaps to operate, some one
noticed the intruder. The head nurse came to me and laid a hand on my
shoulder. "My child, it was you who b