“Dick is coming tomorrow. I had a letter from him today saying he had been given a short leave and would take the first train to me. I suppose I ought to be happy over his coming, but I am not. Later it might have been easier to have told him what I must tell him. Perhaps, after a while, I won’t even feel quite so wicked as I do now. It is a perfectly horrid sensation, Nona! Of course you are such a saint you can’t even imagine how I feel!”
Then Nona did manage to laugh, and getting up from her chair she went over and sat down on the bed beside Barbara, putting her arm about her.
“I know you do not wish me to say, Bab, that I think you have been quite square. But please don’t think I desire to criticise you; I am just dreadfully sorry and wish there were something I could say or do that might help. I know you were simply lonely and that life at the hospital has seemed rather hard and dull after your happy time in your own home with Dick. If we had only been very busy at the hospital it would have made a great difference. Perhaps Mildred or Eugenia——”
“Mildred and Eugenia!” Nona felt her hand being tightly clutched.
“Oh, for goodness sake promise me never to breathe a word of what I have told you either to Mildred or Gene. I am sure Gene would never allow me to remain at the hospital afterwards. And, somehow, to have one’s right to be a Red Cross nurse taken away would make one feel as a soldier must who is stripped of his uniform and sword. Then you see Mildred might possibly tell my mother-in-law what I have done and she has never been any too enthusiastic over me as a wife for Dick.”
The faintest suggestion of a smile appearing on Barbara’s face at this moment, Nona felt the gloom of the situation a bit lightened.
“Suppose you allow me to help you to bed then, Bab, and let us not talk about disagreeable things any more tonight. As Dick is to arrive tomorrow, at least there is no point in your looking as if you had been ill. Just remember you can count on me if I can be useful in any possible fashion.”
“You are a dear, Nona,” Barbara answered, as she began slowly to follow her friend’s advice, “especially as I have been pretty neglectful and have seemed to be indifferent to you lately. But you know I never have been indifferent really. It was only that I was doing something of which I realized you would not approve and I did not wish you to know.”
Nona made no answer, but after waiting until Barbara was comfortably in bed she kissed her and went quietly away.
As a matter of fact, she had told Barbara nothing of what she had intended telling her. But she could not make up her mind to burden her further with the information that Lieutenant Kelley might have to meet another disillusion, more serious, perhaps, than the loss of his faith in her. For there can be nothing in the life of a soldier that comes so close to him as having his loyalty doubted.