But this final hour of waiting was a long agony for Lloyd. Her moods changed with every moment; the action she contemplated presented itself to her mind in a multitude of varying lights. At one time she quivered with the apprehension of it, as though at the slow approach of hot irons. At another she could see no reason for being greatly concerned over the matter. Did the whole affair amount to so much, after all? Her companions would, of their own accord, make excuses for her. Risking one's life in the case of a virulent, contagious disease was no small matter. No one could be blamed for leaving such a case. At one moment Lloyd's idea of public confession seemed to her little less than sublime; at another, almost ridiculous. But she remembered the case of Harriet Freeze, who had been unable to resist the quiet, unexpressed force of opinion of her fellow-workers. It would be strange if Lloyd should find herself driven from the very house she had built.
The hour before supper-time seemed interminable; the quarter passed, then the half, then the three-quarters. Lloyd imagined she began to detect a faint odour of the kitchen in the air. Suddenly the remaining minutes of the hour began to be stricken from the dial of her clock with bewildering rapidity. From the drawing-room immediately below came the sounds of the piano. That was Esther Thielman, no doubt, playing one of her interminable Polish compositions. All at once the piano stopped, and, with a quick sinking of the heart, Lloyd heard the sliding doors separating the drawing-room from the dining-room roll back. Miss Douglass and another one of the nurses, Miss Truslow, a young girl, a newcomer in the house, came out of the former's room and went downstairs, discussing the merits of burlap as preferable to wall-paper. Lloyd even heard Miss Truslow remark:
"Yes, that's very true, but if it isn't sized it will wrinkle in damp weather."
Rownie came to Lloyd's door and knocked, and, without waiting for a reply, said:
"Dinneh's served, Miss Searight," and Lloyd heard her make the same announcement at Miss Bergyn's room farther down the hall. One by one Lloyd heard the others go downstairs. The rooms and hallways on the second floor fell quiet. A faint, subdued murmur of talk came to her ears in the direction of the dining-room. Lloyd waited for five, for ten, for fifteen minutes. Then she rose, drawing in her breath, straightening herself to her full height. She went to the door, then paused for a moment, looking back at all the familiar objects—the plain, rich furniture, the book-shelves, the great, comfortable couch, the old-fashioned round mirror that hung between the windows, and her writing-desk of blackened mahogany. It seemed to her that in some way she was never to see these things again, as if she were saying good-bye to them and to the life she had led in that room and in their surroundings. She would be a different woman when she came back to that room. Slowly she descended the stairs and halted for a moment in the hall below. It was not too late to turn back even now. She could hear her companions at their supper very plainly, and could distinguish Esther Thielman's laugh as she exclaimed:
"Why, of course, that's the very thing I mean."
It was a strange surprise that Lloyd had in store for them all. Her heart began to beat heavy and thick. Could she even find her voice to speak when the time came? Would it not be better to put it off, to think over the whole matter again between now and to-morrow morning? But she moved her head impatiently. No, she would not turn back. She found that the sliding doors in the drawing-room had been closed, and so went to the door that opened into the dining-room from the hall itself. It stood ajar. Lloyd pushed it open, entered, and, closing the door behind her, stood there leaning against it.
The table was almost full; only two or three places besides her own were unoccupied. There was Miss Bergyn at the head; the fever nurse, Miss Douglass, at her right, and, lower down, Lloyd saw Esther Thielman; Delia Craig, just back from a surgical case of Dr. Street's; Miss Page, the oldest and most experienced nurse of them all; Gilbertson, whom every one called by her last name; Miss Ives and Eleanor Bogart, who had both taken doctors' degrees, and could have practised if they had desired; Miss Wentworth, who had served an apprenticeship in a missionary hospital in Armenia, and had known Clara Barton, and, last of all, the newcomer, Miss Truslow, very young and very pretty, who had never yet had a case, and upon whose diploma the ink was hardly dry.
At first, so quietly had she entered, no one took any notice of Lloyd, and she stood a moment, her back to the door, wondering how she should begin. Everybody seemed to be in the best of humour; a babel of talk was in the air; conversations were going forward, carried on across the table, or over intervening shoulders.
"Why, of course, don't you see, that's the very thing I meant—"