So often before these dreary days had she dreamed of wide estrangement between her and David, and had been thankful even to tears when she had come to herself to find she had been only dreaming. But from this there was no awakening.
Yet there were hours when it seemed as if the trouble must be unreal. She and David drifting farther and farther apart never to meet again in the old way! No, that could not be true!
To-night she sat alone in the living-room, apparently reading; but David kept obtruding himself into the story, so that it did not run smoothly. Every little while the reader would sigh, and yet the tale was supposed to be humorous. Finally she became aware of voices in the room adjoining, a little room where Dr. Dudley went whenever he could spare a few minutes’ time, to rest or to think over cases that troubled him. At first she did not recognize the woman’s voice; then she knew that it belonged to Miss French, one of the nurses.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” the nurse was saying. “I hoped she could stay to-night; but her mother is so much worse that she was just about crazy. She said she must go, and you can’t blame her.”
“We’ll have to get somebody outside,” said Dr. Dudley.
“We can’t!” asserted Miss French. “There’s a shortage of nurses everywhere, so many are off on vacations. I’ve telephoned and telephoned—I didn’t want to bother you if I could help it—and Dr. Macy told me to engage the best I could find; but there isn’t a soul to be had.”
“If Mrs. Dudley were at home she would go in for to-night; but we’ll get along somehow. They are all pretty well in there, that’s a good thing.”
“Yes, Paradise Ward is the easiest to handle,” assented the nurse.
Polly had been listening, listening closely, while red spots fluttered in and out of her cheeks.