He holds out his hands to be sponged "if I don't mind." I sponge them over and over again with iced water and eau de Cologne, gently and very slowly. I am afraid lest he should be aware that there is any hurry. The time goes on, and my anxiety becomes acuter every minute, till with each slow, lingering turn of my hand I think, "If I don't go soon it will be too late."
I hear that the children will be all right. Somebody has had a crise de nerfs, and Janet was the victim.
It is past midnight, and very dark. The Place and the boulevards are deserted. I cannot see the Red Cross flag hanging from the window of the Convent. The boulevards look all the same in the blackness, and I turn up the one to the left. I run on and on very fast, but I cannot see the white flag with the red cross anywhere; I run back, thinking I must have passed it, turn and go on again.
There is nobody in sight. No sound anywhere but the sound of my own feet running faster and faster up the wrong boulevard.
At last I know I have gone too far, the houses are entirely strange. I run back to the Place to get my bearings, and start again. I run faster than ever. I pass a solitary civilian coming down the boulevard. The place is so empty and so still that he and I seem to be the only things alive and awake in this quarter of the town. As I pass he turns to look after me, wondering at the solitary lady running so fast at this hour of the morning. I see the Red Cross flag in the distance, and I come to a door that looks like the door of the Convent. It is the door of the Convent.
I ring the bell. I ring it many times. Nobody comes.
I ring a little louder. A tired lay sister puts her head out of an upper window and asks me what I want. I tell her. She is rather cross and says I've come to the wrong door. I must go to the second door; and she puts her head in and shuts the window with a clang that expresses her just resentment.
I go to the second door, and ring many times again. And another lay sister puts her head out of an upper window.
She is gentle but sleepy and very slow. She cannot take it in all at once. She says they are all asleep in the Convent, and she does not like to wake them. She says this several times, so that I may understand.
I am exasperated.