No sooner was the fatal word written than the fingers of his right hand began to stiffen, the pencil fell upon the bed, then rolled dejectedly to the floor, where the writer said it might stay for all he cared.
"You must let me finish the letter," said I, when his hand had been rubbed and tucked away in a warm mitten.
"Thank you, Miss; I was getting on nicely, and there's not much more to say," he returned ruefully, scanning the wavering lines before him.
"Well, shall I go on for a bit and let you wind up," said I, unscrewing my pen and taking the pad on my knee.
"Me telling you what to put like?" he asked with a look of pleased relief.
"That's it. Just say what you would write down yourself."
He cleared his throat.
"DEAR WIFE," he resumed, "the wounds is ... awful, not letting me write at all. The one in my back is as long as your arm, and they says it will heal quicker than the one in my knee, which has two tubes in which they squirts strong-smelling stuff through. The foot is a pretty sight, as big as half a melon, and I doubts ever being able to put it to the ground again, though they says I shall. I gets very stiff at nights and the pain sometimes is cruel, but they gives me a prick with the morphia needle then which makes me dream something beautiful...."
There was a pause while he indulged in a smiling reverie.
"Perhaps we have said enough about your pains," I ventured, when, returning from his visions, he puckered his brows in fresh thought. "Your wife might be frightened if—"