Chapter 23

ORDERS

I slept longer than I had meant to do, the next morning; but I rose with a happy feeling of being in my place; where I wanted to be. That is, to be sure, not always the criterion by which to know the place where one ought to be; yet where it is a qualification it is also in some sense a token. The ministry of the hours preceding swept over me while I was dressing, with something of the grand swell and cadence of the notes of a great organ; grand and solemn and sweet. I entered the ward, ready for the day's work, with a glad readiness.

So I felt, as I stepped in and went down the space between the rows of beds. Miss Yates nodded to me.

"Here you are!" she said. "Fresh as the morning. Well I don't know why we shouldn't have pleasant things in such a place as this, if we can get them; there's enough that ain't pleasant, and folks forget there is anything else in the world. Now you'll be better than breakfast, to some of them; and here's breakfast, my dear. You know how to manage that."

I knew very well how to manage that; and I knew too, as I went on with my ministrations, that Miss Yates was not altogether wrong. My ministry did give pleasure; and I could not help enjoying the knowledge. This was not the enjoyment of flattering crowds, waiting round me with homage in their eyes and on their tongues. I had known that too, and felt the foolish flutter of gratified vanity for a moment, to be ashamed of it the next. This was the brightening eye, the relaxing lip, the tone of gratification, from those whose days and hours were a weary struggle with pain and disease; to bring a moment's refreshment to them was a great joy, which gives me no shame now in the remembrance. Even if it was only the refreshment of memory and fancy, that was something; and I gave thanks in my heart, as I went from one sufferer to another, that I had been made pleasant to look at. Preston himself smiled at me this morning, which I thought a great gain.

"Well, you do know how to sing!" he said softly, as I was giving him his tea and toast.

"I am glad you think so."

"Think so! Why, Daisy, positively I was inclined to bless gunpowder for the minute, for having brought me here. Now if you would only sing something else - Don't you know anything from Norma, or II Trovatore?"

"They would be rather out of place here."

"Not a bit of it. Create a soul under the ribs - Well, this is vile tea."

"Hush, Preston; you know the tea is good, like everything else here."

"I know no such thing. There is nothing good in this place, - except you, - and I suppose that is the reason you have chosen it for your abode. I can't imagine how Aunt Randolph came to let you, though."

"She let me come to take care of you."

"_I_'m not worth it. What's a man good for, when there is only half of him left? I should like just to get into one other field, and let powder take the other half."

"Hush, Preston! hush; you must not talk so. There's your mother."

"My mother won't think much of me now, I don't know why she should. You never did, even when I was myself."

"I think just as much of you now as ever, Preston. You might be much more than your old self, if you would."

Preston frowned and rolled his head over on the pillow.

"Confounded!" he muttered. "To be in such a den of Yankees!"

"You are ungrateful."

"I am not. I owe it to Yankee powder."

What, perhaps, had Southern powder done? I shivered inwardly, and for a moment forgot Preston.

"What is the matter?" said he. "You look queer; and it is very queer of you to spill my tea."

"Drink it then," I said, "and don't talk in such a way. I will not have you do it, Preston, to me."

He glanced at me, a little wickedly; but he had finished his breakfast and I turned from him. As I turned, I saw that the bed opposite, where Morton had died a few hours before, had already received another occupant. It startled me a little; this quick transition; this sudden total passing away; then, as I cast another glance at the newly come, my breath stood still. I saw eyes watching me, - I had never but once known such eyes; I saw an embrowned but very familiar face; as I looked, I saw a flash of light come into the eyes, quick and brilliant as I had seen such flashes come and go a hundred times. I knew what I saw.

It seems to me now in the retrospect, it seemed to me then, as if my life - that which makes life - were that moment suddenly gathered up, held before me, and then dashed under my feet; thrown down to the ground and trampled on. For a moment the sight of my eyes failed me. I think nobody noticed it. I think nothing was to be seen, except that I stood still for that minute. It passed, and my sight returned; and as one whose life is under foot and who knows it will never rise again, I crossed the floor to Thorold. We were not alone. Eyes and ears were all around us. Remembering this, I put my hand in his and said a simple -

"How do you do?"

But his look at me was so infinitely glad and sweet, that my senses failed me again. I did not sink down; but I stood without sight or hearing. The clasp of his hand recalled me.

"It is Daisy!" he said smiling. "Daisy, and not a vision. My Daisy! How is it?"

"What can I do for you?" I said hastily.

"Nothing. Stand there. I have been looking at you; and thought it was long till you would look at me."

"I was busy."

"Yes, I know, love. How is it, Daisy? When did you come back from Switzerland?"

"Months ago."

"I did not know of it."

"Letters failed, I suppose."

"Then you wrote?"

"I wrote, - with papa's letter."

"When?"

"Oh, long ago - long ago; - I don't know, - a year or two."

"It never reached me," he said, a shadow crossing his bright brow.

"I sent it to your aunt, for her to send it to you; and she sent it; I asked her."

"Failed," he said. "What was it, Daisy?"

The question was put eagerly.

"Papa was very good," I said; - "and you were very right, Christian, and I was wrong. He liked your letter."

"And I should have liked his?" he said, with one of those brilliant illuminations of eye and face.

"I think you would."

"Then I have got all I can ask for," he said. "You are mine; and while we live in this world we belong to each other. Is it not so?"

There was mamma. But I could not speak of her. Even she could not prevent the truth of what Christian said; in one way it must be true. I gave no denial. Thorold clasped my hand very fast, and I stood breathless. Then suddenly I asked if he had had his breakfast? He laughed and said yes, and still clasped my hand in a grasp that said it was better than food and drink to him. I stood like one from under whose feet the ground is slipping away. I longed to know, but dared not ask, what had brought him there; whether he was suffering; the words would not come to my lips. I knew Dr. Sandford would be here by and by; how should I bear it? But I, and nobody but me, must do all that was done for this sufferer at least.

I left Mr. Thorold, to attend to duties that called me on all hands. I did them like one in a dream. Yet my ordinary manner was quiet, and I suppose nobody saw any difference; only I felt it. I was looking all the time for the moment of Dr. Sandford's appearance, and praying for strength. It came, his visit, as everything does come, when its time was; and I followed him in his round; waiting and helping as there was want of me. I did it coolly, I know, with faculties sharpened by an intense motive and feelings engrossed with one thought. I proved myself a good assistant; I knew Dr. Sandford approved of me; I triumphed, so far, in the consciousness that I had made good my claim to my position, and was in no danger of being shoved away on the score of incompetency.

"Doctor," said Preston when we came round to him, "won't you send away Miss Randolph out of a place that she is not fit for?"

"I will," said Dr. Sandford grimly, "when I find such a place."

"Out of _this_ place, then, where she ought not to be; and you know it."

"It would be your loss, my friend. You are exercising great self-denial, or else you speak in ignorance."

"She might as well go on the stage at once!" said Preston bitterly. "Singing half the night to sixty soldiers, - and won't give one a thing from Norma, then!"

The doctor gave one quick glance of his blue eye at me; it was a glance inquiring, recognising, touched, sympathising, all in an instant; it surprised me. Then it went coolly back to his work.

"What does she sing?"

"Psalms" - said Preston.

"Feverish tendency?" said the doctor.

Preston flung himself to one side, with a violent word, almost an oath, that shocked me. We left him and went on.

Or rather, went over; for at the instant Dr. Sandford's eye caught the new occupant of the opposite bed. I was glad to find that he did not recognise him.

The examination of Mr. Thorold's wounds followed. They were internal, and had been neglected. I do not know how I went through it; seeing how he went through it partly helped me, for I thought he did not seem to suffer greatly. His face was entirely calm, and his eye clear whenever it could catch mine. But the operation was long; and I felt when it was over as if I had been through a battle myself. I was forced to leave him and go on with my attentions to the other sufferers in the ward; and I could not get back to Mr. Thorold till the dinner hour. I managed to be at his side to serve him then. But he had the use of his arms and hands and did not need feeding, like some of the others.

"It is worth being here, Daisy," said Mr. Thorold, when I came with his dinner; which was, however, a light one.

"No," said I. Speaking in low tones, which I was accustomed to use to all there, we were in little danger of being overheard.

"Not to you," said he with a laughing flash of his eye; "I only spoke of my own sense of things. That is as I tell you."

"How do you do now?" I asked tremblingly.

His eye changed, softened, lifted itself to mine with a beautiful glow in it. I half knew what was coming before he spoke.

"We know in whose hands I am," he said. "I have earned the 'right to my name,' Daisy."

Ah, that was hard to bear! harder than the surgeon's probe which had gone before. It was hard at the same time not to fall on my knees to give thanks; or to break out into a shout of glad praise. I suppose I showed nothing of it, only stood still - and pale by the side of the bed; till Mr. Thorold asked me for something, and I knew that I had been neglecting his dinner. And then I knew that I was neglecting others; and flew across to Preston, who needed my services.

"Who's that over yonder," he grumbled.

"One newly come in - wounded," I replied.

"Isn't it somebody you know?"

"It is one I used to know."

"Then you know him yet, I suppose. It is that fellow Thorold, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"What has brought him here?"

"He is wounded," I whispered.

"I am glad of it!" said Preston, savagely. "Why shouldn't he be wounded, when his betters are? Is he badly off?"

I simply could not answer at the minute.

"How's he wounded?"

"I do not know."

"You don't know! when you were attending to him. Then he hasn't lost a leg or an arm, I suppose? You would know that."

"No."

"D-n him!" said Preston. "That _he_ should be whole and sound and only half of me left!"

I was dumb, for want of the power to speak. I think such a passion of indignation and displeasure never found place in my heart, before or since. But I did not wish to say anything angrily, and yet my heart was full of violent feeling that could find but violent words. I fed Preston in silence till his dinner was done, and left him. Then as I passed near him again soon after, I stopped.

"You are so far from sound, Preston," I said, "that I shall keep out of the way of your words. You must excuse me - but I cannot hear or allow them; and as you have no control over yourself, my only resource is to keep at a distance."

I waited for no answer but moved away; and busied myself with all the ward rather than him. It was a hard, hard, afternoon's work; my heart divided between the temptation to violent anger and violent tears. I kept away from Mr. Thorold too, partly from policy, and partly because I could not command myself, I was afraid, in his presence. But towards evening I found myself by his side, and in the dusk our hands met; while I used a fan with the other hand, by way of seeming to do something for him.

"What is the matter?" he whispered.

"Matter?" I repeated.

"Yes."

"There is enough the matter here always, Christian."

"Yes. And what more than usual this afternoon?"

"What makes you ask?"

"I have been looking at you."

"And what did you see?"

"I saw that you were hiding something, from everybody but me. Tell it now."

"Christian, it was not anything good."

"Confess your faults one to another, then," said he. "What is the use of having friends?"

"You would not be pleased to hear of my faults."

I could see, even in the dim light, the flash of his eye as it looked into mine.

"How many, Daisy?"

"Anger," I said; - "and resentment; and - self-will."

"What raised the anger?" said he; a different tone coming into his own voice.

"Preston. His way of talking."

"About me?"

"Yes. I cannot get over it."

And I thought I should have broken down at that minute. My fan-play ceased. Christian held my hand very fast, and after a few minutes began again -

"Does he know you are angry, Daisy?"

"Yes, he does; for I told him as much."

"Did you tell him sharply?"

"No. I told him coldly."

"Go over and say that you have forgiven him."

"But I have not forgiven him."

"You know you must."

"I cannot, just yet, Christian. To-morrow, perhaps I can."

"You must do it to-night, Daisy. You do not know what else you may have to do before to-morrow, that you will want the spirit of love for."

I was silent a little, for I knew that was true.

"Well? -" said he.

"What can I do?" I said. "I suppose it will wear out; but just now I have great displeasure against Preston. I cannot tell him I forgive him. I have not forgiven him."

"And do not want to forgive him?"

I was again silent, for the answer would have had to be an affirmative.

"If I could reach you, I would kiss that away," said Thorold. "Daisy, must _I_ tell _you_, that there is One who can look it away? You need not wait."

I knew he spoke truth again; and I had forgotten it. Truth that once by experience I so well knew. I stood silent and self-condemned.

"Christian, I do not very often get angry; but when I do, I am afraid the feeling is very obstinate."

"The case isn't desperate - unless you are obstinate too," he said, with a look which conquered me. I fanned him a little while longer; not long. For I was able very soon to go across to Preston.

"Are you going to desert me for that fellow?" he growled.

"I must desert you, for whoever wants me more than you do; and you must be willing that I should."

"If it wasn't for confounded Yankees!" he said.

"Yankees are pretty good to you, Preston, I think, just now. What if they were to desert you? Where is your generosity?"

"Shot away. Come, Daisy, I had no business to speak as I did. I'll confess it. Forgive me, won't you?"

"Entirely," I said. "But you gave me great pain, Preston."

"You are like the thinnest description of glass manufacture," said Preston. "What wouldn't scratch something else, makes a confounded fracture in your feelings. I'll try and remember what brittle ware I am dealing with."

So that was over, and I gave him his tea; and then went round to do the same by others. I had to take them in turn; and when I got to Mr. Thorold at last, there was no more time then for talking, which I longed for. After the surgeon's round, when all was quiet again in the room, I sat at the foot of Mr. Thorold's bed with a kind of cry in my heart, to which I could give no expression. I could not kneel there, to pray; I could not leave my post; I could not speak nor listen where I wanted a full interchange of heart with heart; the oppression almost choked me. Then I remembered I could sing. And I sang that hour, if I never did before. My sorrow, and my joy, and my cry of heart, I put them all into the notes and poured them forth in my song. I was never so glad I could sing as these days. I knew, all the time, it was medicine and anodynes and strength - and maybe teaching - to many that heard; for me, it was the cry of prayer, and the pleading of faith, and the confession of utmost need. How strong "Rock of Ages" seemed to me again that night; the hymn, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds," was to me a very schedule of treasure; my soul mounted on the words, like the angels on Jacob's ladder; the top of the ladder was in heaven, if the foot of it was on a very rough spot of earth. That night I sang hymns, in the high-wrought state of my feelings, which the next day I could not have sung. I remember that one of them was "What are these in bright array," with the chorus, "They have clean robes, white robes." "When I can read my title clear," was another. Sometimes a hymn starts up to me now, with a thrill of knowledge that I sang it that night, which yet at other times I cannot recall. I sang till the hour, and past it, when I must go to my room and give place to the night watchers. I longed to stay, but it was impossible; so I went and bade Preston good-night, who said to me never a word this time; spoke to one or two others; and then went to Mr. Thorold. I laid my hand on his. He grasped it immediately and looked up at me with a clear, sweet, bright look, which did me untold good; pulling me gently down. I bent over him, thinking he wished to speak; then I knew what he wished, and obeying the impulse and the request, our lips met. I don't know if anybody saw it; and I did not care. That kiss sent me to sleep.

The next day I was myself again. Not relieved from the impression which had seized me when I first saw Mr. Thorold; but quietly able to bear it; in a sort raised above it. To do the moment's duty; to gather, and to give, every stray crumb of relief or pleasure that might be possible for either of us; better than that, to do the Lord's will and to bear it, were all I sought for. All at least, of which I was fairly conscious that I sought it; the heart has a way of carrying on underground trains of feeling and action of its own, and so did mine now. As I found afterwards. But I was perfectly able for all my work. When next I had an opportunity for private talk with Mr. Thorold, he asked me with a smile, if the resentment was all gone? I told him, "Oh, yes."

"What was the 'self-will' about, Daisy?"

"You remember too well," I said.

"What?"

"Me and my words."

"Why?"

"It is not easy to say why, just in this instance."

"No. Well, Daisy, say the other thing. About the self-will."

I hesitated.

"Are you apt to be self-willed?" he asked, tenderly.

"I do not know. I believe I did not use to think so. I am afraid it is very difficult to know oneself, Christian."

"_I_ think you are self-willed," he said, smiling.

"Did you use to see it in me?"

"I think so. What is the present matter in hand, Daisy?"

I did not want to tell him. But I could not run away. And those bright eyes were going over my face and reading in it, I knew. I did not know what they read. I feared. He waited, smiling a little as he looked.

"I ought not to be self-willed, - about anything," - I said at last.

"No, I suppose not. What has got a grip of your heart then, Daisy?"

"I am unwilling to see you lying here," I said. It was said with great force upon myself, under the stress of necessity.

"And unwilling that I should get any but one sort of discharge," - he added.

"You do not fear it," I said, hastily.

"I fear nothing. But a soldier, Daisy, - a soldier ought to be ready for orders; and he must not choose. He does not know where the service will call for him. He knows his Captain does know."

I stood still, slowly fanning Mr. Thorold; my self-control could go no further than to keep, me outwardly quiet.

"_You_ used to be a soldier," he said gently, after a pause. "You are yet. Not ready for orders, Daisy?"

"Christian - you know, -" I stammered forth.

"I know, my beloved. And there is another that knows. He knows all. Can't you leave the matter to him?"

"I must."

"Must is a hard word. Let Jesus appoint, and let you and me obey; because we love Him, and are His."

He was silent, and so was I then; the words trooping in a sort of grand procession through some distant part of my brain - "All things are yours; whether life, or death, or the world, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." I knew they swept by there, in their sweetness and their majesty; I could not lay hold of them to make them dwell with me then.

A few days went past, filled with duty as usual; more filled with a consuming desire which had taken possession of me, to know really how Mr. Thorold was and what were the prospects of his recovery. His face always looked clear and well; I thought his wounds were not specially painful; I never saw any sign that they were; the dressing of them was always borne very quietly. _That_ was not uncommon, but involuntary tokens of pain were sometimes wrung from the sufferers; a sigh, or a knit brow, or a pale cheek, or a clinched hand, gave one sorrowful knowledge often that the heroism of patient courage was more severely tested in the hospital than on the field. I never saw any of these signs in Mr. Thorold. In spite of myself, a hope began to spring and grow in my heart, which at the first seeing of him in that place I had thought dead altogether. And then I could not rest short of certainty. But how to get any light at all on the subject was a question. The other nurse could not tell me, for she knew no more than myself; not so much, for she rarely nursed Mr. Thorold. Dr. Sandford never told how his patients were doing or likely to do; if he were asked, he evaded the answer. What we were to do, he told explicitly, carefully; the issue of our cares he left it to time and fact to show. So what was I to do? Moreover, I did not wish to let him see that I had any, the least, solicitude for one case more than the rest. And another thing, I dreaded unspeakably to make the appeal and have my doubts solved. With the one difficulty and the other before me, I let day after day go by; day after day; during which I saw as much of Mr. Thorold as I could, and watched him with intense eyes. But I was able to resolve nothing; only I thought his appetite grew poorer than it had been, while that of many others was improving. We had some chance for talk during those days; by snatches, I told him a good deal of the history of my European life; and he gave me details of his life in camp and field. We lived very close to each other all that time, though outward communication was so restricted. Hearts have their own way of communicating, - and spirits are not wholly shut in by flesh and blood. But as the days went by, my anxiety and suspense began to glow unendurable.

So I followed Dr. Sandford one morning to his den, as he called it.

"Are you getting tired of hospital life?" he asked me? with a smile. "I see you want to speak to me."

"You know I am not tired."

"I know you are not. There is something in a woman that likes suffering, I think, if only she can lay her hand on it and relieve it."

"That is making it a very selfish business, Dr. Sandford."

"We are all selfish," said the doctor. "The difference is, that some are selfish for themselves, and some for other people."

"Now you are cynical."

"I am nothing of the kind. What do you want with me?"

"Preston is doing very well, is he not, Dr. Sandford."

"Perfectly well. He will be out just as soon as in the nature of things it is possible. I suppose, or am I not to suppose, that then you will consider your work done?"

"I do not think he wants me a quarter as much as other people, now."

"He does not want you at all, in the sense of needing. In the other sense, I presume different people might put in a claim to be attended to."

"But, Dr. Sandford, I wish I knew who of all these people in the ward need me most."

"You are doing all you can for all of them."

"If I had that knowledge, though, I might serve them better - or with more judicious service."

"No you could not," said the doctor. "You are twice as judicious as Miss Yates now; though she is twice as old as you. You do the right thing in the right place always."

"I wish you would do this thing for me, nevertheless, Dr. Sandford. I wish it very much."

"What thing?"

"Let me know the various states of the patients, and their prospect of recovery."

"Most of them have a very fair prospect of recovery," said the doctor.

"Will you do it for me, Dr. Sandford? - I ask it as a great favour."

"Gary's all right," he said, with a full look at me.

"Yes, I know; but I would like to know how it is with the others. I could better tell how to minister to them, and what to do."

"The thing to be done would not vary at all with your increased knowledge, Daisy."

"Not the things in your line, I know; but the things in mine."

"You would know better how to sing, to wit?" said the doctor.

"And to pray -" I said half under my breath.

"Daisy, I haven't a schedule of the cases here; and if I told you, you might forget, among so many, which was which. Anyhow, I have not the schedule."

"No, but you could do this for me. To-night, Dr. Sandford, when you go round, you could indicate to me what I want to know, and nobody else be the wiser. When we come to any case that is serious, but with hope, take hold of your chin, so; if any is serious without hope, just pass your hand through your hair. You do that often."

"Not when I am going my rounds, Daisy," said the doctor, looking amused.

"Only this time, for me," I pleaded.

"You would not sing as well."

"I should - or I might - know better how to sing."

"Or you might not be able to sing at all. Though your nerves are good," the doctor admitted. "Women's nerves are made of a material altogether differently selected, or tempered, from that of masculine nerves; pure metal, of some ethereal sort."

"Are there such things as masculine nerves?" I asked.

"Do you doubt it?" said the doctor, turning a half reproachful look upon me.

"Dr. Sandford, I do not doubt it. And so, you will, for once, and as an extraordinary kindness, do this thing for me that I have asked you."

"The use of it is hidden from me," said the doctor; "but to admit my ignorance is a thing I have often done before, where you are concerned."

"Then I will take care to be with you as soon as you come in this evening," I said, "so as to get all you will tell me."

"If I do not forget it," said the doctor.

But I knew there was no danger of his forgetting. There was no taking Dr. Sandford off his guard. In all matters that concerned his professional duties, he was like steel; for strength and truth and temper. Nothing that Dr. Sandford did not see; nothing that he did not remember; nothing that was too much for his skill and energies and executive faculty. Nobody disobeyed Dr. Sandford - unless it were I, now and then.

I walked through the rest of that day in a smothered fever. How I had found courage to make my proposition to the doctor, I do not know; it was the courage of desperate suspense which could bear itself no longer. After the promise had been obtained that I sought, my courage failed. My joints trembled under me, as I went about the ward; my very hands trembled as I ministered to the men. The certainty that I had coveted, I dreaded now. Yet Mr. Thorold looked so well and seemed to suffer so little, I could not but quarrel with myself for folly, in being so fearful. Also I was ready to question myself, whether I had done right in seeking more knowledge of the future than might come to me day by day in the slow course of events. But I had done it; and Dr. Sandford was coming in the evening.

"What is the matter with you, Daisy?" Mr. Thorold said.

"Is anything the matter?" I replied.

"Yes. What is it?"

"How can you see it, Christian?"

"I?" - said he. "I see right through your eyes, back into the thought that looks out of them."

"Yet you ask me for the thought?"

"The root of it. Yes. I see that you are preoccupied, and troubled; - and trembling. _You_, my Daisy?

"Can I quite help it, Christian?"

"Can you quite trust the Lord?"

"But, - not that He will always save me from what I fear."

"No; not that. Let Him save you from the _fear_."

"How have you learned so much about it, so much more than I?" - and my lips were trembling then, I know.

"I have had time," he said gently. "All those months and months, when you were at an unimaginable distance from me, actually and morally, - and prospectively, - do you think I had no chance to exercise myself in the lesson of submission? I fought out that problem, Daisy."

"Were you in Washington the winter of '61?" I asked, changing the subject; for I could not bear it.

"Part of that winter," he said, with a somewhat surprised look at me.

"Did you meet in society here that winter a Miss St. Clair, who used to be once a schoolmate of mine? - very handsome."

"I think I remember her. I knew nothing about her having been at school with you, or I think I should have sought her acquaintance."

"She was said to have yours."

"A passing, society acquaintance, she had."

"Nothing more?"

"More?" said he. "No. Nothing more."

"How came the report that you were her dearest friend?"

"From the father of lies," said Mr. Thorold; "if there ever was such a report; which I should doubt."

"It came to me in Paris."

"Did you believe it?"

"I could not; but papa did. It came from Miss St. Clair's own particular friend, and she told mamma, I think, that you were engaged to her."

"I think particular friends are a nuisance!" said Mr. Thorold. "Why, she was said _here_, to be engaged to somebody, - Major - Major Somebody, - I forget. Major Fairbairn."

"Major Fairbairn!"

"Yes. Why?"

"That explains it," I exclaimed.

"Explains what?" said Mr. Thorold. And such a shower of fire as came from his eyes then, fun and intelligence and affection, never came from anybody's eyes beside. I had to tell him all I was thinking about; and then hurry away to my duties.

But at tea time I could touch nothing. The trembling had reached my very heart.

"Why, you ain't going to give out, are you?" said Miss Yates in a concerned voice. "You've gone a little beyond your tether."

"Not at all," said I; "not at all. I am only not hungry. I will go back, if you please, to something I _can_ do."

I busied myself restlessly about the ward, till one of the men, I forget who, asked me to sing to them. It had become a standing ordinance of the place; and people said, a very beneficial one. But to-night I had not thought I could sing. Yet when he asked me, the power came. I did not sit down 'as usual;' standing at the foot of Mr. Thorold's bed I sang, leaning hard against strength and love out of sight; and my voice was as clear as ever.

The ward was so very still that I should have thought nothing could come in or go out without my being conscious of a stir. However, the absolute hush continued, until it occurred to me that I must have been singing a great while, and I half turned and glanced down the room. My singing was done; for there stood Dr. Sandford, as still as I had been, with folded arms near the door. I went towards him immediately.

"Do you have this sort of concert most evenings?" he inquired, as he took my hand.

"Always, Dr. Sandford."

"I never heard you sing so well anywhere else," he remarked.

"I never had such an audience. But now, you remember my request this morning, Dr. Sandford?"

"I never forget your requests," he said, gravely. And we went to business.

From one to another, from one to another. Generally with no more but a pleasant or a kind word from the doctor to the patient; but two or three times the doctor's hand came to his chin for a moment, before such a word was spoken. - It did not in those cases tell me much. I had known, or guessed, the truth of them before. I suppose every good nurse must get a power or faculty of reading symptoms and seeing the state of the patient, both actual and probable. I was not shocked nor startled. But the shock and the start were all the greater, when pausing before the one cot which held what I cared for in this world, the doctor's fingers were thrust suddenly through his thick auburn hair. He went on immediately with the due attention to Mr. Thorold's wounds; and I waited and stood by, with no outward sign, I think, of the death at my heart. Even through all the round, I kept my place by Dr. Sandford's side, doing whatever was wanted of me, attending, at least in outward guise, to what was going on. So one can do, while the whole soul and life are concentrated on some point unconnected with it all, outside of it all, in the distance. Towards that point I slowly made my way, as the doctor went through his rounds; and came up with it at last in the little retiring room which he called his own and where our conversation of the morning had been held.

"I see how little I know, Dr. Sandford," I remarked.

"Ay?" said he. "I had been thinking rather the other way."

"You surprised me very much - with the one touch of your hair."

The doctor was silent.

"I should have thought - in my ignorance - several others more likely to have called for it."

"Thorold is the only one," said the doctor.

"How is it?"

"The injuries are internal and complicated; and beyond reach."

The doctor had been washing his hands, and I was now washing mine; and with my face so turned away from him, I went on.

"He does not seem to suffer much."

"Doesn't he?" said the doctor.

"Should he?"

"He should, if he has not good power of self-control. No man in the ward suffers as he does. I have noticed, he hides it well."

I was washing my hands. I remember my wringing the water from them; then I remember no more. When I knew anything again, I was lying on an old sofa that stood in the doctor's room, and he was putting water or brandy - I hardly know what - on my face. With a face of his own that was pale, I saw even then, without seeing it, as it bent over me. He was speaking my name. I struggled for breath and tried to raise myself. He gently put me back.

"Lie still," he said. "Are you better?"

"I am quite well," I answered.

He gave me a few drops of something to swallow. It revived me. I sat up presently on the sofa, pushed back the hair from my face, and thought I would get up and be as though nothing had been. Dr. Sandford's hand followed my hasty fingers and put gently away from my brow the hair I had failed to stroke into order. It was an unlucky touch, for it reached more than my hair and my brow. I turned deadly sick again, and fell back into unconsciousness.

When a second time I recovered sense, I kept still and waited and let Dr. Sandford minister to me as he thought best, with strong waters and sweet waters and ice water; until he saw that I was really restored, and I saw that great concern was sitting upon his features.

"You have overtasked yourself at last," he said.

"Not at all," I answered, quietly.

"You must do no more, Daisy."

"I must do all my work," I said. And I sat up now and put my feet to the floor, and put up my fallen-down hair, taking out my comb and twisting up the hair in some semblance of its wont.

"Your work here is done," said the doctor.

I finished doing up my hair and took a towel and wiped the drops of water and brandy from my face.

"Daisy, I know your face," said the doctor, anxiously; "and it has just the determined gentleness I used to see at ten years old. But you would yield to authority then, and you must now. And you will."

"When it is properly exerted," I said. "But it is not now, Dr. Sandford, and it will not be. I am perfectly well; and I am going to do my work."

"You fainted just now from very exhaustion."

"I am not exhausted at all. Nor even tired. I am perfectly well."

"I never knew you faint before."

"No," I said. "It is very disagreeable."

"Disagreeable!" said the doctor, half laughing, though thoroughly disturbed. "What made you do it, then?"

I could not answer. I stood still, with cheeks I suppose again growing so white, that the doctor hastily approached me with hartshorn. But I put it away and shook my head.

"I am not going to faint again, thank you."

"Daisy, Daisy!" said the doctor, "don't you know that your welfare is very dear to me?"

"I know it," I said. "I know you are like a good brother to me, Dr. Sandford."

"I am not like a brother at all!" said he. "Cannot you see that?"

"I do not want to see it," I answered sadly. "If I have not a brother in you, I have nothing."

"Why?" he asked shortly.

But I made no answer, and he asked no more. He looked at me, made a step towards the door, turned back, and came close to me, speaking in a husky changed tone, -

"You shall command me, Daisy, as you have long done. Let me know what to do to please you."

He went away then and left me. And I gathered my strength together and went back to Mr. Thorold.