I was obliged to consider my own patients and keep away from the small-pox camp during the epidemic, for fear of carrying infection, and consequently I saw nothing of Evadne, and only heard of her through the military doctor, for she would not write. His report of her, however, was always the same at first. She was the life of the camp, bright, cheerful, and active, never tired apparently, and never disheartened. This went on for some time, and then, one evening, there came another report. She was just as cheerful as ever, but looking most awfully done.
At daybreak next morning I drove out to the common, and, leaving my dogcart outside the camp, went in to look for her. I knew that she was generally up all night, and was therefore prepared to find her about, and I met her making her way toward her own tent. She was dressed like a French bonne, in a short dark blue gown made of some washing material, with a white apron and white cap, and a châtelaine with useful implements upon it hanging from her girdle, a very suitable costume for the work; but she wore no wrap of any kind, and the morning air was keen.
I noticed as she walked toward me that her gait was a little uncertain. Once she put out her hand as if seeking something to grasp, and once she staggered and stopped. I hastened to her assistance, and saw as I approached her that she was colourless even to her lips; her eyes were bright and sunken, with large black circles round them, and the lids were heavy. I drew her hand through my arm without more formal greeting, and she grasped it gratefully for a moment, then dropped it and stepped back.
"I forgot," she said, "it seems so natural to see you anywhere. But don't touch me. I shall infect you."
"I shall have to go home and change in any case," I answered briskly.
"I've been up all night with a poor woman," she said, "and I'm just tired out. Don't look concerned, though. I shall not take small-pox. My own illness, you remember, was a blessing in disguise, and I am sure the absorbing distraction of helping to relieve others—" she stopped short, looked about her confusedly, and then exclaimed: "It is quite time I went to bed. I declare I don't know the Hospital Tent from the sandy common, nor a rabbit running about from a convalescent child, and the whin bushes are waltzing round me derisively." She swayed a little, recovered herself, tried to laugh, then threw up her hands, and fell forward into my arms.
I carried her to her tent, guided by one of the men. On the way Dr. James joined us. We laid her on her bed and looked anxiously for symptoms of the dreadful disease, but there were none.
"No, you see," Dr. James declared, "it's just what I expected—sheer exhaustion, and nothing else. But she'd better be got out of this atmosphere at once."
She was in a semi-unconscious, semi-somnolent state, half syncope, half sleep, and there was nothing to be gained by rousing her just then, so we wrapped her up warmly in shawls, sent for my dogcart, and lifted her on the back seat, where I supported her as best I could, while my man drove us to As-You-Like-It.
Colonel Golquhoun was not up when we arrived, but I waited to see her swallow some champagne after she had been put to bed, and in the meantime the bustle had aroused him. When he learnt the occasion of it, his wrath knew no bounds. He could not have abused me in choicer language if I had been one of his own subalterns. But I managed to keep my temper until I could get a word in, and then I mildly suggested that the best thing he could do, as he was so afraid of infection, was to give himself leave, and be off. "Nobody will expect you to stay and look after your wife," I said. "You'd better go to town."