"Mr. Wicks, look at the moon."
Obedient as one who receives an order, he reached up to his supporting handle and pulled his shoulders half round in bed to look with me through the pane.
The young moon, freed from the trees, was rising over the hill.
I dropped the blind again and took up my towels and left him.
After that he seemed to fall into one of his trances, and lay immovable an hour or more. When I took his dinner to him he lifted his large, sandy head and said:
"Seems a queer thing that if you hadn't said 'Look at the moon' I might have bin dead without seeing her."
"But don't you ever look out of the window?"
The obstinate man shook his head.
There was a long silence in the ward to-night. It was so cold that no one spoke. It is a gloomy ward, I think; the pink silk on the electric lights is so much too thick, and the fire smokes dreadfully. The patients sat round the fire with their "British warms" over their dressing-gowns and the collars turned up.