"You'll know if we find them."
"It was, then, this Miss?—"
"Bourn."
"Bourn. Exactly. Of that undiscovered country. Having discovered who induced the buying of the ticket aforesaid, there remains how she did it, this Miss—a—Bourn."
Late the following day they came to a hospital that had been a warehouse and stood on rising ground, a little back from the river, where a white steamer was lying at the wharf. There were sheds around the building, and new wooden steps built up to the door where the freight had once been discharged.
A man at the door said Mrs. Mavering and Miss Bourn were within, and took their names. Beyond him they saw accurately straight rows of cots, each with a head at one end. In a few moments he came back and said the two nurses would be off duty in an hour.
They walked to and fro, past their horses fastened in one of the sheds, till the dusk grew around them. The hospital windows were lit. Lights began to gleam beyond the river and the flat lands. A mist rose and clung to the water, crouched and ghostly. There was no moon, but the stars were out, and one could hear the lapping of the cold water among the reeds. They did not see Rachel and Helen come from the wide door down the new wooden steps, or notice them till they were near, coming hooded and cloaked through the dusk.
Mavering admitted to himself a personal and direct surprise. His last memories of Rachel were of tears, and then pale dignity and a kind of fine repellence. But she did not betray the past in manner. He could not see her face.
She said:
"There will be scallops for supper, gentlemen, and then may we have your adventures?"