A case that had made good progress was removed from the ward, a newly-arrived, severely-wounded man brought in.
"If only it were Ronald!" The neat, prim figure of the Sister, supervising the orderlies busy lifting the casualty into the bed, gave no indication of the desperate agonised prayer.
She dreamed.
"——Mine at last, my beloved—really mine!" The familiar voice thrilled through her, very close, overhead.
"Yours! Always yours!" she heard herself murmur.
She took her head from the darkness that obscured her vision—it was his coat against which she had been nestling; she saw the little white touzled-up hairs of the rough tweed ere her gaze stretched to longer focus. She looked to his face, met his vivid eyes—looked round at her surroundings.
They were alone in the first-class compartment of a railway train that rocked and roared. His lips were pressed on hers. "The great day, dearest!" he said. Her mind leaped to the allusion. Their wedding-day! They had been married that morning—she could hear still the joyous peal of bells—were going away on their honeymoon. The tweed suit he wore was quite new—something like the old. She was in a travelling-dress that he had already admired. Of course! It all came back to her as if she had just awakened from a little sleep.
The train rushed on. She lived through all the cinematograph-like pictures of the journey. A halt and descent—little anxieties about the luggage—then—after an interlude which was vague—another train, another long journey—all was a continuous long experience. She thrilled at a surreptitious squeeze of his hand—ah, yes, there were other people in the carriage now—rounded her lips at him in a provoking similitude of a kiss, daringly profiting by the inattention of their fellow-travellers. A yearning for him—induced by the naughty little act—filled her breast, persisted. There was bustle, confusion. They were in a throng of travellers who hurried. Hurry! They must not lose the boat. It lay there before them, only its upper works seen, its two great funnels leaning backward, belching black smoke. The black smoke spread over the sky. It was night. They were on board the boat, cradled in an easy motion, sensible of the throb of the engines. On and on they journeyed, linked in a very close communion of eyes that spoke, of hands that squeezed each other. She tasted a thousand little kindnesses. How good he was! How loving!
And still the journey went on. Yet more trains. She must have slept. She woke to a great city, filled with innumerable inhabitants, all very busy. They spoke a strange language very rapidly to one another. She could not understand a word. But he, Ronald, understood—conversed with them in their foreign tongue. How clever he was! There was music somewhere—from a lighted café that flooded a damp street with radiance.