"Well, let us go on. This woman may give you leave to go in."
But Mrs. Stanmore was also firm in her refusal.
"We cannot allow even the nearest relatives to enter," she said, "we are all taken up by duty and cannot have strangers in the wards; but if the patient is likely to die and wishes to see a friend or relative in the city we send for him or her. If you will give me your name and address I will see that you are sent for should the patient ask for you. The rule I can assure you is absolute, and I have no power whatever to grant permission to anyone except in the case I have named."
Minette went away raving, and it needed indeed all René's remonstrances and entreaties to induce her to leave.
"It is clear," he said, "that he cannot be near death; were he so he would assuredly ask for you. So after all it is good news that you have received, and as I told you all along, though the surgeon said that it was a serious wound, he did not say that it was likely to be fatal, as he did in the case of Cuthbert Hartington. These army surgeons do not mince matters, and there was no reason why he should not have said at once to me that the American was likely to die if he thought it would be so."
"I will go to see him to-morrow," she said, with an angry stamp of her foot. "If the women try to prevent me I will tear their faces. If the men interfere to stop me I will scream so loud that they will be forced to let me in. It is abominable to keep a woman from the bedside of the man she loves."
"It is of no use you talking in that wild way, Minette," René said, sternly; "how do you suppose a hospital is to be managed if every sick man is to have women sitting at his bed. It is childish of you to talk so, and most ungrateful. These foreigners are supporting this ambulance at their own expense. The ladies are working like slaves to succor our wounded and you go on like a passionate child because, busy as they are, they are obliged to adhere to their regulations. At any rate I will come here with you no more. I am not going to see these kind people insulted."
CHAPTER XV.
Mary Brander made her way wearily home.