Nadia spoke to the man in the linen coat, and then turned to Bertram and Dr. Weekes.
“It is the Countess Narishkin. She was a nurse here. Yesterday she developed the typhus fever. There is no kind of hope for the poor child.”
She knelt down on the bare boards, and put one arm under the girl’s head and raised it a little, smoothing her hair back.
“Princess,” said Dr. Weekes, sternly, “you know enough about typhus to avoid unnecessary risks.”
“That is true,” said Nadia. “For the sake of others.”
She rose from her kneeling position, laying the girl’s head very gently on the boards again.
“I have some medicine,” said the young doctor, “I will give her an injection this afternoon. But I’m afraid—”
He looked at Nadia, and she said “Yes,” understanding him.
That afternoon, using their sleigh, they went to twelve such homes for abandoned children, and in each of them were the same scenes of stricken childhood, and in each of them the same amount of fever, of vermin, of filth, and of stench.
“God!” said Bertram, at last, “It’s too awful. Can you bear to see any more, Nadia?”