"Have you had anything to eat to-day?" he asked, suddenly.
She shook her head. "I could not eat! It would choke me!"
"But you must eat, you know," he said, gently, as if she were a little child. "You cannot bear all this. You will break down."
"Oh, what does that matter now?" she asked, pitifully, with her hand fluttering to her heart again and a wave of anguish passing over her white face.
"But we must live, mustn't we, until we are called to come away?"
He asked the question shyly. He did not understand where the thought or words came from. He was not conscious of evolving them from his own mind.
She looked at him in sad acquiescence. "I know," she said, like a submissive child; "and I'll try, pretty soon. But I can't just yet. It would choke me!"
Even while they were talking a door in the front of the hall opened, and an untidy person with unkempt hair appeared, asking the girl to come into her room and have a bite. When she shook her head the woman said:
"Well, then, child, go out a few minutes and get something. You'll not last the night through at this rate! Go, and I'll stay here until you come back."
Courtland persuaded her at last to come with him down to a little restaurant around the corner and have a cup of tea—just a cup of tea—and with a weary look, as if she thought it was the quickest way to get rid of their kindness, she yielded. He thought he never would forget the look she cast behind her at the little, white, sheet-covered cot as she passed out the door.