"Is he all right now?" I asked.
"Yes, I hope so. The unfavourable symptoms didn't return, and the doctor thought him going on quite satisfactorily. But I stayed with the man a long time, because it was so important for him to be watched attentively whilst we were uncertain about his sanity, that I did not like to leave the responsibility to any one else. Then, when I could trust him to a nurse alone, I had such an accumulation of work to get through that I've been hard at it ever since, and not had a moment to myself till now; so you see I had no choice about giving up the quiet talk with you that we had proposed having. I'm on my way back to him now, as I want to hear the nurse's account of him during my absence."
"Humph!" grunted I, feeling that I need not fear saying what I thought, now that I was on the verge of quitting the hospital; "you won't be much the wiser for that, if it's Nurse Mary that's looking after him. If you knew her as well as I do, and knew how sleepy she is, how constantly she neglects her business, and what a wonderful facility she has for inventing false excuses when she's blamed, you'd never believe a word she tells you."
"It wasn't her I left him with, but one of the others," replied the Sister. "To tell you the truth, I should not have trusted such a case as that in her hands alone. For though I don't think quite so badly of her as you do, yet still I am by no means satisfied with her. You are not the only patient who has, either directly or indirectly, intimated she is not what she should be; and I have myself noticed things tending to confirm these complaints."
"Why don't you get rid of her, then, when you yourself allow that you've no confidence in her?" asked I.
The Sister hesitated a moment, and then answered: "Had the matter rested solely with me, I believe I should very likely have done so. But when I told the authorities what I thought of her, the doctor took her part so strongly that nothing came of it. He declared that he saw no reason whatever to be dissatisfied with her; and that sick people were always so fanciful, exacting, and peevish, that it was ridiculous to take any notice of their imaginary grievances. And as he was quite positive of being right, whilst I spoke more from suspicion than actual knowledge of the woman's behaviour, he carried the day. Perhaps it's as well so after all. To dismiss her would very possibly have ruined her professional prospects; and I should never forgive myself if I thought I had been the means of inflicting so severe a penalty on any one without sufficient cause."
"Oh Sister!" exclaimed I, abruptly; "is that the man you were talking of?"
In order to enable my readers to understand what ensued, I must delay my narrative for a moment to explain how we were all placed.
Sister Helena and I were sitting at a table about the middle of a very long room, having a door at each end, and beds ranged down both sides. In the bed nearest to us was a poor woman who had been badly burnt in an explosion; and by her side stood the nurse of the ward, employed in changing the dressings of the burns. I was the only patient who was still up and dressed; the rest were in bed, and one or two of them already asleep. They were all women who had been injured severely in some way or other; and as I, though well enough to be discharged from the hospital, was still extremely weak after my long illness, it will be seen that Sister Helena and the nurse were the only two able-bodied individuals in the ward.
The cause of the exclamation I had uttered was this. I—who was facing one of the doors towards which the Sister had her back—suddenly saw that door pushed partially open, and a man's head poked in as though for the purpose of reconnoitring. After a hasty survey the owner followed his head quickly into the room, closed the door cautiously behind him, executed a fantastic pirouette, advanced a yard or so in a kind of polka-step, came to a stand-still by a chair near the door, and commenced bowing and smiling with extravagant gestures. On his shoulder he carried an implement used for breaking and piercing ice, which was rather like a hammer, with a sharp, triangular, steel spike at one end of the head. He was big, broad-shouldered, and muscular; his head was bound up in bandages; and he was clad in shirt, trousers, and socks. In consequence of having no shoes on, his movements were noiseless; and this noiselessness considerably enhanced the uncanny and startling effect produced by the sudden appearance amongst us of so strange a figure, demeaning itself in so eccentric a manner.