ouldn't worry--yet. If he wasn't going to pull
through there would be something----"

"Something to tell you?"

"Well, yes--if you put it that way. I most always know with a patient.
It isn't anything in his condition. It's more like a hunch. There's
often the difference between a doctor and a nurse. The doctor goes by
what he sees, the nurse by what she feels. Nine times out of ten the
doctor'll see wrong and the nurse'll feel right--and there you are!
You can't go by doctors. A lot of guess-work gumps, I often think; and
yet the laity need them for comfort."

Making the most of all this Barbara asked, timidly: "Is there anything
I could do?"

"Well, no! There isn't much that anyone can do. You've just got to
wait. If you're going to stay----"

"I should like to."

"Then you can be somewhere else in the house so that I could call
you--or you could sit right here--whichever you preferred."

"I'd rather sit right here, if I shouldn't be in the way."

"Oh, when you're in the way I'll tell you."

On this understanding Barbara sat down, in a small low armchair not
far from the foot of the bed. Miss Gallifer also sat down, nearer to
the window, taking up a book which, as Barbara could see from the
"jacket" on the cover, bore the title, _The Secret of Violet Pryde_.
It was clear that there was nothing to be done, since Miss Gallifer
could so easily lose herself in her novel.

Not till her jumble of impressions began to arrange themselves did
Barbara realize that she was in Rash's room, surrounded by the objects
most intimate to his person. Here the poor boy slept and dressed, and
lived the portion of his life which no one else could share with him.
In a sense they were rifling his privacy, the secrecy with which every
human being has in some measure to surround himself. She recalled a
day in her childhood, after her parents and both her brothers had
died, when their house with its contents was put up for sale. She
remembered the horror with which she had seen strangers walking about
in the rooms sanctified by loved presences, and endeared to her
holiest memories. Something of that she felt now, as Miss Gallifer
threw aside her book, sprang lightly to her feet, hurried into Rash's
bathroom, and came out with a towel slightly damped, which she passed
over the patient's brow. She was so horribly at ease! It was as if
Rash no longer had a personality whose rights one must respect.

But he might get better! Miss Gall