sufferer. Her full young voice
kept its cool note of authority, her sympathy revealing itself only in
the expert touch of her hands and the constant vigilance of her dark
steady eyes. This vigilance softened to pity as the patient turned his
head away with a groan. His free left hand continued to travel the
sheet, clasping and unclasping itself in contortions of feverish unrest.
It was as though all the anguish of his mutilation found expression in
that lonely hand, left without work in the world now that its mate was
useless.

The nurse felt a touch on her shoulder, and rose to face the matron, a
sharp-featured woman with a soft intonation.

"This is Mr. Amherst, Miss Brent. The assistant manager from the mills.
He wishes to see Dillon."

John Amherst's step was singularly noiseless. The nurse, sensitive by
nature and training to all physical characteristics, was struck at once
by the contrast between his alert face and figure and the silent way in
which he moved. She noticed, too, that the same contrast was repeated in
the face itself, its spare energetic outline, with the high nose and
compressed lips of the mover of men, being curiously modified by the
veiled inward gaze of the grey eyes he turned on her. It was one of the
interests of Justine Brent's crowded yet lonely life to attempt a rapid
mental classification of the persons she met; but the contradictions in
Amherst's face baffled her, and she murmured inwardly "I don't know" as
she drew aside to let him approach the bed. He stood by her in silence,
his hands clasped behind him, his eyes on the injured man, who lay
motionless, as if sunk in a lethargy. The matron, at the call of another
nurse, had minced away down the ward, committing Amherst with a glance
to Miss Brent; and the two remained alone by the bed.

After a pause, Amherst moved toward the window beyond the empty cot
adjoining Dillon's. One of the white screens used to isolate dying
patients had been placed against this cot, which was the last at that
end of the ward, and the space beyond formed a secluded corner, where a
few words could be exchanged out of reach of the eyes in the other beds.

"Is he asleep?" Amherst asked, as Miss Brent joined him.

Miss Brent glanced at him again. His voice betokened not merely
education, but something different and deeper--the familiar habit of
gentle speech; and his shabby clothes--carefully brushed, but ill-cut
and worn along the seams--sat on him easily