But with such dangerous elements at work it was scarcely to be expected that this time of peace and apparent security could be of long continuance. Strause was not the man to hold himself in check long, and Keith began to find the yoke which tied him to Kitty more galling every day. When all was still at night he often went across to the hospital; he felt safe to go there then. Kitty was asleep in her room in the hotel, Long Tom was not troubling anybody; but the sick and dying were wanting help and consolation, and, what was more important to Keith, although he did not dare to whisper it even to himself, Mollie was there. He might do some trifle for her; he might help her in an hour of need.
There came a night after one of the many battles when such a number of wounded had been brought to the hospital that every nurse in the town was requisitioned to look after them. The enteric cases were also getting more and more numerous; there was not a bed to spare. Keith resolved to sit up all night in order to give what help he could. He met Mollie at the door of the enteric ward.
"I am at your service for to-night," he said.
"Thank God," she answered. "We shall need all the help we can get."
"Which ward shall I go to—the surgical or enteric?"
She looked around her. They were standing just then at the entrance to the surgical ward: the doctors, two or three of whom were present, were busy attending to the suffering patients; an amputation was going on behind a screen in a distant corner; the groans of the dying reached the ears of the man and woman as they stood so close together, and yet so truly far from each other. Keith, even at that extreme moment, thought of the tie which bound him to Kitty; and Mollie, as she raised her eyes to look into his face, felt a great throb of her heart. How manly he was, how brave, how all that a woman could love and worship!
Just at this instant she raised her hand and laid it on his arm.
"Will you not go and rest for an hour?" she said; "you look terribly spent."
"And you?" he answered, "are you never tired out?"
"Oh, don't think of me; I am happy in my work."