As she walked into her room, too weary to think any more, and longing for the temporary oblivion of a night's rest, the first thing that met her eye was the unmade condition of her bed. The desolate look of the tiny compartment was the crowning point of her day of woe; and the tears, which she had kept back until now, rushed to her eyes. It seemed a little hard that, on this day of all others, Phyllis should have neglected to make her bed. She gave it an impatient push, and it scraped loudly over the bare boards.
"Stop that row!" said Polly's sharp voice from the other end of the room. "You might be quiet, now you have come in."
"Is Phyllis asleep?" asked Katharine shortly.
"Can't you be quiet?" growled Polly. "Haven't you heard she is worse? Don't see how you should, though,—coming in at this hour of the night!"
"Worse?" With an effort, Katharine's thoughts travelled back over the absorbing events of the day, to the early morning; and she remembered that Phyllis had stayed in bed with a headache. "What is the matter with her?" she asked, faintly. Everything seemed to be conspiring against her happiness to-day.
"Influenza. A lot you care! Nothing but my cousin's funeral would have taken me out to-day, I know. I had to show up for that. Of course, I thought you would look after her; I asked you to."
Katharine had pushed aside the curtain, and was looking at the flushed, unconscious face of her friend. She dimly remembered saying she would stop with her; and then a letter had come from Paul, asking her to meet him in the park, and she had thought no more of Phyllis. She had not even succeeded in meeting him; and again her eyes filled with tears at her own misfortunes.
"I couldn't help it," she said, miserably. "How was I to know she was so bad? Have you taken her temperature?"
"Hundred and three, when I last took it. It's no use standing there and pulling a long face. She doesn't know you; so it's rather late in the day to be cut up. You'd better go to bed, I should say; you look as though you'd been out all day, and half the night, too!"
She ended with a contemptuous sniff. Katharine rubbed the tears out of her eyes. The weariness had temporarily left her.