"Well, I'm hanged if that ugly Dutchman's half good enough for her, even if he did fix me up!" Sanderson growled.

"Of course he isn't. What man is ever good enough for a woman?" was the tart rejoinder.

"The Lord help the fellow who gets you, Miss Trivett!" Sanderson said with feeling.

"No. You are wrong. I know my own weakness," sighed the wise, if plain, nurse. "If I should marry, I would love him so much that he might walk upon me if he wished."

It was not by any determined and set method that Belinda Melnotte kept Sanderson at a distance. She merely followed the calm path of her duty as usual, betraying nothing to her fellow-nurses of what fretted her spirit.

A few days more and The Head would put into her hand the certificate for which she had served two hard years. A dozen besides Sue Blaine and herself were to be graduated.

As there was some operating-room work to be done, Belinda was excused from attendance on the convalescent in Room A-a. Sanderson discovered this when another nurse came to his call in the morning. She was a probationer and had a year yet to serve.

"Say, where's Miss Melnotte?" he demanded.

"She's busy." The nurse told him why.

"Isn't she coming back to me?"