At intervals, as they passed, was a cot shut off by screens of white linen, fluted and ironed, as high as the eyes. These spotless blanks stood out more awful to Margaret in intimation of hidden horror than any open physical convulsion. Behind these screens was more often silence, but sometimes came forth an indistinct and restless muttering, and once a sharp, panging groan. A sick apprehension gripped her, and she felt her palms growing moist with sweat. She was sickly sensible of the sweet, pungent smell of carbolic and ether, sharpened by a spicy odor of balsam-of-Peru. From the pillows curious eyes peered at her, set in faces sharp-featured and hectic, or a shambling figure in loose garments moved, bent and halting, across their path. She caught a sidewise view, through a swing door, of a tiled operating-room, with a glittering mêlée of polished instruments. Here and there she thought the lapping folds of bandages moved, showing blue glimpses of gaping cuts and festering tissue. It seemed as if the long rows of white coverlids and iron bed-bars would go on eternally.
As they came to the extreme end of the room, Margaret suddenly stopped, gripping Lois’s arm with vise-close fingers. “What is that?” she whispered.
“What is what?”
She stood listening, her neck bent sideways, and a flush of excitement rising on her cheeks. “Didn’t you hear him call me?” she said.
“Hear him? Hear who?” said Lois.
But she did not answer. “Take me away; oh, take me away!” she said weakly. “I want to go back to the room. I—I can’t tell you what I thought I heard. It would sound such nonsense. I must have imagined it. Oh, of course I imagined it! Oh, Lois, I don’t believe I will ever be any good here, do you?”
Lois drew her into the outside corridor and up the hall. “I do believe you are sick yourself!” she said. “Why, you have quite a fever. There is something troubling you, dear, I’m sure. Can’t you tell me about it?”
“Oh, no! Indeed there is nothing!” cried Margaret. “Lois, I want to see all the patients—the worst ones. Promise me you’ll take me with you when you go around to-night. Indeed, indeed, I must! You must let me! I will be just as quiet! You will see! You think it wouldn’t be best—that I’m too fanciful and sensitive yet—but indeed, it isn’t that. Maybe it’s because I only look on from a distance. I don’t touch it, actually. I’m only a spectator. If I could go quite close, or do something to help with my hands, maybe they would seem more like people, and the sickness of it would leave me. Do, dear, say I may to-night!”
They had reached the room now, and Lois gently forced Margaret upon the lounge. “Very well,” she said, “I will. I’m going through at nine o’clock. I’m not afraid of your sensitiveness. It’s the sensitive ones who make the best nurses, Dr. Goodno says. They can feel their diagnosis. But you must lie down till I can come for you.”