As they raised Greta up, she pointed down the corridor. "Ha! you see? You see?" The backs of two men were disappearing in the distance.
"You have failed again!" Greta shouted after them. "Always you'll fail!"
The wardresses quickly had her on her feet. They handled her with a respect so scant that Nan broke in:
"Let me, please! Oh, gently!"
"She'll show you the way out." The tall wardress nodded curtly at the other.
Greta shot out a hand and clutched Nan's sleeve. "You wanted to help me? Then find a way to see him. Say as long as it's for him, nothing can break me."
"I'm going to get them to send you a doctor," the girl cried.
"Come." The tall wardress seized the disheveled figure by the other arm.
Greta seemed not to know the horrible cap was falling off. "I'd rather have you, after all, than any doctor." She still maintained that fierce hold on Nan. "Specially now that I know you're as"—that laugh!—"as silly as ever. Oh, why couldn't I be selig, too!" Her drooping lips quivered. She fell to feeble crying. "I wanted the good things. More than any one in this world I wanted—since I was little I've wanted to get away from ugliness and evil. I wanted to be a lady. Ai!" she shrieked. "Damn you!"
The younger wardress had slipped round behind the others. She had thrust a hand in between Nan and Greta and loosened the prisoner's hold by some sly use of pain.