Sidney nodded. The girl's anxious eyes were on her.
“It was a shock to me, that's all. I didn't want you to think I'd break my heart over any fellow. All I meant was, I wished he'd let me know.”
Her eyes searched Sidney's. They looked unnaturally large and somber in her face. Her hair had been cut short, and her nightgown, open at the neck, showed her thin throat and prominent clavicles.
“You're from the city, aren't you, Miss Page?”
“Yes.”
“You told me the street, but I've forgotten it.”
Sidney repeated the name of the Street, and slipped a fresh pillow under the girl's head.
“The evening paper says there's a girl going to be married on your street.”
“Really! Oh, I think I know. A friend of mine is going to be married. Was the name Lorenz?”
“The girl's name was Lorenz. I—I don't remember the man's name.”
“She is going to marry a Mr. Howe,” said Sidney briskly. “Now, how do you feel? More comfy?”
“Fine! I suppose you'll be going to that wedding?”
“If I ever get time to have a dress made, I'll surely go.”
Toward six o'clock the next morning, the night nurse was making out her reports. On one record, which said at the top, “Grace Irving, age 19,” and an address which, to the initiated, told all her story, the night nurse wrote:—
“Did not sleep at all during night. Face set and eyes staring, but complains of no pain. Refused milk at eleven and three.”
Carlotta Harrison, back from her vacation, reported for duty the next morning, and was assigned to E ward, which was Sidney's. She gave Sidney a curt little nod, and proceeded to change the entire routine with the thoroughness of a Central American revolutionary president. Sidney, who had yet to learn that with some people authority can only assert
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