She opened an inner door, and signed to him to pass before her. There was sunlight there, and no lack of it, though it shone on sights which to Philip Marsden's unaccustomed eyes seemed to dim the brightness. Rows of little crutches along the walls, weary unchildlike faces resting on the low divans in the windows; in the centre a more cheerful picture of little ones gathered round a table set with bread and milk.
"This is my show room and these are my show babies," said Belle with a smile. "We all get about more or less and play by ourselves; don't we, nurse? And some of us, like Georgie here, are going home again because we are too strong for the place. We don't keep noisy, romping, rioting ragamuffins, do we, children?"
The face she turned up to hers as she passed grinned doubtfully, but all the other little white faces dimpled and wrinkled with mirth at the very idea of Georgie's exile. They went up stairs now, into more sunshine streaming on rows of beds where childhood wore away with no pleasure beyond a languid joy at a new picture-book or a bunch of flowers. Here they trod softly, for some of the little ones were already asleep.
"Where is Freddy?" asked Belle in a whisper of the nurse busy smoothing an empty cot.
"He seemed so restless this morning, ma'am, that Dr. Simmonds thought we had better put him in the White Ward; he was afraid--"
Belle passed on, her face a shade graver, and as Philip followed her up another wide staircase she paused before a closed door and asked him to wait for her; she would not be long.
He caught a glimpse of a smaller, more home-like room, white and still, with the light shaded from the open windows. Then he stood leaning against the bannisters, watching the dancing motes in a sunbeam slanting down from the skylight overhead; a skylight looking as if it were glazed with sapphire.
"That was the White Ward," said Belle, coming out and passing upward through the beam of light. She spoke almost cheerfully, but Philip, who had faced death, and worse horrors than death, many a time without a qualm, felt himself shiver. Once again they paused before a closed door and she gave Philip a hurried half-appealing glance, before she said nervously, "I have Jack in this ward now. Dr. Simmonds thinks it good for him to be with the other children, and he seems to like it better."
It was the sunniest room of all, for the windows were set wide open, and the blinds drawn up. The scent of the roses from Belle's garden drifted in with the cool fresh wind. The children had evidently all been out, for a pile of hats and cloaks lay on the table, but they were now seated on their cots awaiting their turn for lunch. Philip's eyes, travelling down the row of beds, rested on a crop of golden curls, and he gave a little exclamation, half groan, half sigh. That was a face he could not mistake, strange and wistful as it was; not an unintelligent face either, and great heavens! how like the father's as it fell stricken to death.
"Listen!" said Belle, touching his arm. A nurse passing with a tray paused in pleased expectancy.