Smiles accepted the implied challenge, and, day by day, with few omissions, the dated pages bore new testimony to her application in performing a self-appointed task. The plan bore fruit, too, for Donald, in his rare replies to her confidential letters, which went to him each fortnight, was able to praise her as the best of correspondents, writing once, "You have an exceptional gift for making incidents seem real and people alive, in your letters, and of realizing that, with us who are so far away from home, it is the little things which count. Ethel, alas, is hopeless in this respect. She writes me faithfully; but invariably says that nothing has happened except the usual occurrences of everyday life, and thereby utterly misses the great fact that it is just those very things that the lonely exile most longs to hear about. I would actually rather have her write that they had baked beans on Saturday night than that so-and-so had given a charity whist at the Vendome."
Yet many a sentence went into the diary that was never copied or embellished for Donald's eyes. Some of them had to do with him, or her thoughts of him; some were too intimate for another to see.
December 6th, 1915.
"My dear Donald has gone. I think that I have not felt so utterly lonesome since granddaddy died. And I could not get away to say good-by to him—I could have cried, only I didn't have time even to do that. It doesn't seem right, when he has been so dear to me, that I should have had to part from him in the hospital corridor with others around, so that all I could do was press his hand an instant and wish him a commonplace, 'Good luck and God-speed.' Still, it probably wouldn't have been any different if we had been alone. I couldn't have done what my heart was longing to do, everything is different now. I don't believe that I enjoy being 'grown-up.' What an unpleasant thing 'convention' is. Why, I wonder, must we always hide our true feelings under a mask? I suppose it is lest the world give a wrong meaning to them; but if I had kissed him, the way I used to, I'm sure that Donald would have understood. He knows that I love him as dearly as though I were truly his sister, instead of a make-believe one."
Here the page bears a number of meaningless hieroglyphics, and then the words, stricken out, "I wonder."
"He looked so manly in his uniform, and so distinguished, although I suppose that he isn't really handsome—at least, not like Dr. Bentley. He isn't so wonderful as Don; but I think that he is more understanding. He seemed to realize just how I felt this morning, and he was as sweet and considerate as a woman when I bungled things awfully in the operating room. The head nurse gave me a deserved call down, however, and it was perhaps just as well that she did, for my mind needed to be 'brought back.' Only my body was in the hospital, and the real me, as Mr. Talmadge said, was back in the cabin, helping Donald operate on Lou, all over again. I cried like a little fool—the first time I have done it here—but my tears weren't for the poor baby on the operating table. They were memory tears....
"Poor little thing, he had to die, and he was the first one whom I have seen pass on to the eternal garden of God's flowers since I have been in the hospital. Oh, it hasn't been a happy day at all....
"I wonder if Donald could have saved him? My brain answers, 'No.' Dr. Bentley did all that lies within the power of science, I am sure. But somehow ..."
Christmas night.