so sorry about Evadne!" she exclaimed, before he had time to
speak. "She had an engagement with my brother. He monopolizes her
whenever he is at home." She laughed affectedly. "Oh, I cannot tell you
when it is coming off, but she has worn his ring for years. They will
not give us any satisfaction--deep as the sea, you know. It seems so
strange to me, but then I am so transparent. She is a clever girl, but
very peculiar. Does not seem to have much natural feeling, you know, but
I suppose I am not fitted to judge, I am so emotional!"

John Randolph bit his lip hard. It startled him to find how sharp a pain
could be.

* * * * *

Day after day Evadne waited but her knight never asked for his answer.
She began to meet him professionally, for his reputation was steadily
increasing, but he made no attempt to resume the conversation which had
been so rudely interrupted. He treated her with a delicate chivalry
always--that was John Randolph's way--and once she had caught such a
strange, wistful expression on his face as he looked at her and then at
a patient's arm which she was deftly bandaging. She was puzzled. What
could it all mean? Well, God understood.

The surgical ward in the new Hospital at Marlborough was filled to its
utmost capacity and Evadne found her work no sinecure. The force of
nurses was inadequate to the demand. Often she would be called from her
rest to minister to the critical cases which were her special care, and
she would go down to the ward saying softly, "The Master is come and
calleth for thee," and bending tenderly over the sufferers, would behold
as in a vision the face of Christ.

"My dear Miss Hildreth!" the superintendent exclaimed one day, "how is
it that you make the patients love you so?"

Evadne laughed merrily. "If they do," she said, "it must be because of
my love for them." And the Superintendent answered in a hushed voice,
"Why, _that_ is the Gospel!"

They called her 'Sister,' these rough men. She liked it so. She felt
herself a sister to the world.

It was evening and the lights were turned low in the surgical ward.
Evadne was making her round before going to her room for a sorely needed
rest. John Randolph, who had come to pay a second visit to an
interesting case in one of the medical wards, stood in the shadow of the
doorway and watched her hungrily. Each one wanted to say something and
Evadne listened patiently. To her the mission of a nurse me