"I shall be scolded dreadfully, madame, when I get to the ambulance four hours after my time."
"You look so much fitter for work, my dear, that if the doctor has eyes in his head, he will be well content that you have taken it out in sleep."
Mary walked with a brisk step down to the hospital.
"I will think no more of it," she said resolutely to herself. "I have chosen to be a nurse and I will go through with it. I think when I get home after this is over I will become a nursing sister—at any rate I may do some good at that; there is plenty of work in the world, even if it is not in the way I thought of doing it."
But she hesitated when she reached the tents, afraid to go in. One of the other nurses came out presently.
"Which tent is Dr. Swinburne in?" she asked.
"In this," she said, "I was just speaking to him."
"Would you mind going in again and asking him to come out. I am dreadfully late this morning and I should like to see him before I go in."
A minute later the surgeon came out.
"What is it, Miss Brander?" he said, kindly. "I missed you this morning, and hoped you were taking a good sleep."