aught a
glimpse of a recumbent form, and felt a pang at the thought of the many
visiting days when her friend had remained alone. With no relations in
town, her brother's family too pressed for means to afford expeditions
from the country, Sophie had no hope of seeing a familiar face, and her
very attitude bespoke dejection.

Claire walked softly to the further side of the bed, and dangled the
basket before the half-covered face, whereupon Sophie pushed back the
clothes and sat up, her eyes lighting with joy.

"_Claire_! You! Oh, you dearly beloved, I thought you were still away!
Oh, I am glad--I am glad! I was so dreadfully blue!"

She looked it. Even in the eagerness of welcome her face looked white
and drawn, and the pretty pink jacket, Claire's own gift, seemed to
accentuate her pallor. The hands with which she fondled the flowers
were surely thinner than they had been ten days before.

"My dear, what munificence! Have you come into a fortune? And fruit
underneath! I shall be able to treat the whole ward! When did you come
back? Have you had a good time? Are you going on to the farm? It _is_
good of you to come again. It's--it's hard being alone when you see the
other patients with their own people. The nurses are dears, but they
are so rushed, poor things, they haven't time to stay and talk. And oh,
Claire, the days! They're so wearily _long_!"

Claire murmured tender exclamations of understanding and pity. A pained
conviction that Sophie was no better made her shrink from putting the
obvious question; but Sophie did not wait to be asked.

"Oh, Claire," she cried desperately, "it's so hard to be patient and to
keep on hoping, when there's no encouragement to hope! I'm not one
scrap better after all that has been tried, and I've discovered that
they did not expect me to be better; the best they seem to hope for is
that I may not grow worse! It's like running at the pitch of one's
speed, and succeeding only in keeping in the same place. And there are
other arthritics in this ward!" She shuddered. "When I think that I
may become like _them_! It would be much easier to die."

"I think it would often seem easier," Claire agreed sadly, her thoughts
turning to Cecil, whose trouble at the moment seemed as heavy as the one
before her. "But we can't be deserters, Sophie. We must stick to our
posts, and play the game. When these troubles come, we just _have_ to
bear them. There's no hiding,