When Charlie Thurkow heard that she had gone into ward number four, he displayed a sudden, singular anger.
“It's not fit for her,” he said. “How could you do it?”
And I noticed that, so far as lay in his power, he kept the worst cases away from number four.
It occasionally happens in life that duty is synonymous with inclination; not often, of course, but occasionally. I twisted inclination round into duty, and put Elsie to night work, while Charlie Thurkow kept the day watches. I myself was forced to keep both as best I could.
Whenever I went into number four ward at night before (save the mark) going to bed, I found Elsie Matheson waiting for me. It must be remembered that she was quite cut off from the little world that surrounded us in the palace. She had no means of obtaining news. Her only link with the outer universe was an occasional patient brought in more dead than alive, and too much occupied with his own affairs to trouble about those of other people.
“Any news?” she would whisper to me as we went round the beds together; and I knew that she meant Capoo. Capoo was all the world for her. It is strange how some little unknown spot on the earth will rise up and come into our lives never to leave the memory again.
“Nothing,” I replied with a melancholy regularity.
Once only she broke through her reserve—through the habit of bearing pain in silence which she had acquired by being so much among dying men.
“Have you no opinion?” she asked, with a sharpness in her voice which I forgave as I heard it.
“Upon what subject?”