“Yes, Miss, we hope he will do well. You are a friend or relative of this man?”
“Dear me, Doctor, if you were not a very recent arrival here, you would know me as well as you know the dispensary. I have been in the habit of coming here daily, with little intermission, for the last three years,” said Elfie, rather impatiently evading the doctor’s question.
“I have been here only for the last fortnight,” he replied.
“Oh, I was away during that time. But I was here yesterday with Miss Rosenthal, and I brought you her message to come to this very patient.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. But now my dear young lady,” said the surgeon, who had not once taken his finger from the pulse of the man on the cot, since he had been laid there, “now my patient shows signs of recovery, and he must positively see no one near him but his physician and nurse. I must beg you to retire.”
“But, Doctor, I—I am his friend,” said Elfie, at length driven to this confession.
“If you were his mother or his sister, his wife or his sweetheart, I could not let you see him, or rather, I could not let him see you, when he wakes,” said the surgeon, firmly, though kindly.
“Yes, Elfie, dear, you must let me take you away. Any sudden shock might be fatal to him when he wakes,” said Erminie, who had come unperceived to her side.
Elfie turned away, with difficulty restraining her sobs. She paused a moment by the side of her new acquaintance on the next cot.
“Good-bye, young soldier,” she said. “I shall see you again to-morrow. And I hope we shall know you better. You are one of the heroes of this war. And I feel sure that your past courage in the field equalled your present fortitude in the hospital.”