"Is this hope based upon a foundation of sand?" she asked herself.
Sanderson had been clean-shaven when Doctor Herschall had treated him. With this ragged growth of beard he scarcely looked the same, save to such eyes as Belinda possessed. For hers was the gaze inspired by love.
She had to admit this now. The shock of seeing him lying so wan and ill forced the acknowledgment of her love to the surface of the girl's mind. Whether he was deserving or not, Frank Sanderson had conquered her affection to the very last barrier.
He was in peril—dire peril. She was inspired to fight for his salvation with all the wisdom and all the art at her disposal.
She brushed a lock of his long hair over the old scar on his brow and turned swiftly to meet the black-browed surgeon.
The latter looked much the same as he had the day he arrived at the hospital station and had so brutally ordered the burial of the kindly médecin chef, its former head.
The military carriage of the Herr Doktor had always been marked. Now, with the helmet and long cloak he wore, and his stern air, he might have been an army corps commander instead of merely a medical officer.
Belinda could not show fear of him at this crisis. All her loathing of the man and of his gallantries for her rose in her mind, but she trampled these thoughts down. She hoped to save Frank Sanderson. She must save him!
She met the Herr Doktor at the head of the ward, and not even Jacob suspected that the pulse of fear beat in her throat. Belinda looked straight into the black, beady eyes of the great surgeon, and raising her pink-tipped finger placed it on her lips to enjoin silence.
As though a man like Franz Herschall ever could be startled!