"I don't know. There are so many, many boats at the landing, and there's been so much firing, and nobody seems to know what is happening or where anybody is. . . . And I don't know where Ailsa is, and I've been ve'y mise'ble because they say some volunteer nurses have been killed——"
"What!"
"I didn't want to tell you, Phil—until you were better——"
"Tell me what?" he managed to say, though a terrible fear was stiffening his lips and throat.
She said dully: "They get shot sometimes. You remember yo'se'f what that Sister of Charity said last night. I heard Ailsa cautioning Letty—the little nurse, Miss Lynden——"
"Yes, I know. What else?"
Celia's underlip quivered: "Nothing, only Ailsa told me that she was ordered to the field hospital fo' duty befo' she went aboard the commission boat—and she never came back—and there was a battle all that day——"
"Is that all?" he demanded, rising on one elbow. "Is there anything else you are concealing?"
"No, Phil. I'd tell you if there was. Perhaps I'm foolish to be so nervous—but I don't know—that Sister of Charity struck by a bullet—and to think of Ailsa out there under fire—" She closed her eyes and sat shivering in the gray chill of the dawn, the tears silently stealing over her pale cheeks. Berkley stared out of the window at a confused and indistinct mass of waggons and tents and moving men, but the light was still too dim to distinguish uniforms; and presently Celia leaned forward and drew the curtains.
Then she turned and took Berkley's hands in hers.