zie, which he will read, to our patient. I
never take a case from one nurse and give it to another, excepting for
incompetency. And Nurse Rosemary Gray could more easily fly, than prove
incompetent. She will not be required to eat in the kitchen. She is a
gentlewoman, and will be treated as such. I wish indeed you could be in
her shoes, though I doubt whether you could have carried it
through--And now I have something to tell you. Just before I left him,
Dalmain asked after you. He sandwiched you most carefully in between
the duchess and Flower; but he could not keep the blood out of his thin
cheeks, and he gripped the bedclothes in his effort to keep his voice
steady. He asked where you were. I said, I believed, in Egypt. When you
were coming home. I told him I had heard you intended returning to
Jerusalem for Easter, and I supposed we might expect you home at the
end of April or early in May. He inquired how you were. I replied that
you were not a good correspondent, but I gathered from occasional
cables and post-cards that you were very fit and having a good time. I
then volunteered the statement that it was I who had sent you abroad
because you were going all to pieces. He made a quick movement with his
hand as if he would have struck me for using the expression. Then he
said: 'Going to pieces? SHE!' in a tone of most utter contempt for me
and my opinions. Then he hastily made minute inquiries for Flower. He
had already asked about the duchess all the questions he intended
asking about you. When he had ascertained that Flower was at home and
well, and had sent him her affectionate sympathy, he begged me to
glance through a pile of letters which were waiting until he felt able
to have them read to him, and to tell him any of the handwritings known
to me. All the world seemed to have sent him letters of sympathy, poor
chap. I told him a dozen or so of the names I knew,--a royal
handwriting among them. He asked whether there were any from abroad.
There were two or three. I knew them all, and named them. He could not
bear to hear any of them read; even the royal letter remained unopened,
though he asked to have it in his hand, and fingered the tiny crimson
crown. Then he asked. 'Is there one from the duchess?' There was. He
wished to hear that one, so I opened and read it. It was very
characteristic of her Grace; full of kindly sympathy, heartily yet
tactfully expressed. Half-way through she said: 'Jane will be upset. I