“Sure it was I?”
“Oh, yes—I was very sure to ask and I spelt the name.”
Horatia reflected. It was now early afternoon. If she went to Mercy Hospital that would be a way to get off and think—and to pass the impatient hours until—
“I must go into town to the office,” she told Aunt Caroline, “but perhaps I’ll come back tonight for supper, unless I have to stay at the office.”
Aunt Caroline said that she hoped Horatia would be very sure to get back by half past six, and that she should expect her. She added that she hoped Horatia wouldn’t tire herself out again with all that newspaper work, and she stood on the top step watching her as she had watched her that first morning when Horatia set off to work. Horatia recalled that day.
“Ah, but now,” she said to herself, “I know where to look for my romance. Romance—how stupidly I went after it—and how glorious that I know where to look for it now.”
Mercy Hospital, flat, clean, yellow brick, fascinated her. Its very paint seemed deliberately sanitary at the expense of charm. She wondered who Mrs. Gordon was. She waited and finally through a maze of corridors was taken to the maternity wing. It appeared that Mrs. Gordon was a maternity case. There was some delay before she was admitted. She stood in the corridor feeling very young and unimpressive. Nurses, holding little blanket bundles, hurried past her. A smell of ether came sickishly from an open door and now, wheeled quickly and expertly, came a table with a covered form under it that was silent and still.
“Is she dead?” Horatia whispered to a nurse at the desk.
The nurse laughed.
“Oh, no indeed. Her baby just came and they’re taking her back to her room. They don’t die that easy.”