“Yes, you are right,” responded Michelle, sighing. She walked on with downcast eyes, depressed and miserable after her useless outburst of indignation.
Lucy could not find words to express the pity she felt for her. Instead, she changed the subject by saying, “I’m coming to spend the night with you, Michelle. Had you forgotten?”
“No, not at all. I am too glad that you will come to forget,” said Michelle sincerely. She looked up at Lucy as she spoke, the blazing light quenched in her eyes. “What time will you come? Perhaps a little more early?”
“I’m not sure. I—Elizabeth may not be able to go when she promised,” said Lucy, floundering a little.
“But she said she could bring you early to-night—soon after the dark,” Michelle persisted.
“Yes—she said so, but you never know. Don’t expect me very early,” was Lucy’s rather evasive answer. At any other time Michelle would have remarked her friend’s lack of candor, but just now she was too unhappy to be observant.
“I’d better leave you here,” said Lucy, as they approached the middle of the town. “You are near home, and I shall go straight to the hospital. I’m breaking my word to Father and Miss Pearse every minute—though I suppose our being together isn’t quite like running off alone. Anyway, I was so excited I never thought.”
“Yes, poor Maman would be sadly anxious if she knew,” Michelle agreed soberly. “Good-bye then, mon amie. I will wait for you to-night.”
Lucy reëntered the hospital with slow and heavy steps, a quarter of an hour later. She had grown deeply thankful that her father’s convalescence was slow and uncertain. Suppose he had been one of those to whom she had just said good-bye? But he was gaining strength daily. Could the time be deferred much longer when he would be sent away? As she pondered these things Major Greyson, who had known her well in the old days, glanced at her, startled by the change in her face. Her hazel eyes had become sombre and watchful, her lips were pressed together, and her cheeks at that moment had lost their healthy color. The surgeon looked after her frowning and troubled. He was thin and worn himself, but he did not think of that.
Lucy was crossing the convalescents’ hall, now so sparsely occupied, toward the nurses’ dining-room, when a voice called eagerly, “Fräulein! Fräulein!”