ent nurse
had followed Lloyd to her room almost immediately, and would not be
denied. She knew very well that Lloyd Searight had never left a dying
patient of her own volition. Intuitively she guessed at something
hidden.

"Lloyd," she said decisively, "don't ask me to believe that you went of
your own free will. Tell me just what happened. Why did you go? Ask me
to believe anything but that you--no, I won't say the word. There was
some very good reason, wasn't there?"

"I--I cannot explain," Lloyd answered. "You must think what you choose.
You wouldn't understand."

But, happily, when Lloyd's reticence finally broke Miss Bergyn did
understand. The superintendent nurse knew Bennett only by report. But
Lloyd she had known for years, and realised that if she had yielded, it
had only been after the last hope had been tried. In the end Lloyd told
her everything that had occurred. But, though she even admitted
Bennett's affection for her, she said nothing about herself, and Miss
Bergyn did not ask.

"I know, of course," said the superintendent nurse at length, "you hate
to think that you were made to go; but men are stronger than women,
Lloyd, and such a man as that must be stronger than most men. You were
not to blame because you left the case, and you are certainly not to
blame for Mr. Ferriss's death. Now I shall give it out here in the house
that you had a very good reason for leaving your case, and that while we
can't explain it any more particularly, I have had a talk with you and
know all about it, and am perfectly satisfied. Then I shall go out to
Medford and see Dr. Pitts. It would be best," she added, for Lloyd had
made a gesture of feeble dissent. "He must understand perfectly, and we
need not be afraid of any talk about the matter at all. What has
happened has happened 'in the profession,' and I don't believe it will
go any further."

* * * * *

Lloyd returned to Bannister toward the end of the week. How long she
would remain she did not know, but for the present the association of
the other nurses was more than she was able to bear. Later, when the
affair had become something of an old story, she would return, resuming
her work as though nothing had happened.

Hattie met her at the railway station with the phaeton and the ponies.
She was radiant with delight at the prospect of having Lloyd all to
herself for an indefinite period of time.

"And you didn't get sick, after