Sampson, before he shot back to town, asked him to provide a good reliable nurse.
He sent a young woman of iron. She received Sampson's instructions, and assumed the command of the sick-room, and was jealous of Mrs. Dodd and Julia, looked on them as mere rival nurses, amateurs, who, if not snubbed, might ruin the professionals. She seemed to have forgotten in the hospitals all about the family affections and their power of turning invalids themselves into nurses.
The second night she got the patient all to herself for four hours, from eleven till two.
The ladies having consented to this arrangement its order to recruit themselves for the work they were not so mad as to intrust wholly to a hireling, nurse's feathers smoothed themselves perceptibly.
At twelve the patient was muttering and murmuring incessantly about wrecks, and money, and things: of which vain babble nurse showed her professional contempt by nodding.
At 12.30 she slept
At 1.20 she snored very loud, and woke instantly at the sound.
She took the thief out of the candle, and went like a good sentinel to look at her charge.
He was not there.
She rubbed her eyes, and held the candle over the place where he ought to be—where, in fact, he must be; for he was far too weak to move.