She plunged her head into cold water, took a glass in her hand, and approached the Prince Ward. For a second she paused at the door; a wild impulse to dash down the glass of water and rush shrieking through the corridor almost overpowered her for a heart-beat. Then her training reasserted itself; she smiled satirically in her own face and went in, leaving, nevertheless, the door wide open behind her. She paused beside the bed.
“Thirsty again? I have brought some water for you.”
She slid a hand to lift the head. She bent over the pillow with a steady glass.
The bed was empty. It was not even made up. There were no sheets on it, no pillow-slip.
The room was like a frozen tomb. The glass dropped from her hand, deluging the mattress with its contents.
She rushed from the room. Fortunately, her felt slippers made no sound. The door swung to noiselessly behind her. She fled up the corridor, and flattened her back against the wall at its furthest end, shaking as with a mortal chill.
There she remained until the gray light of a snowy day crept through the window at her side.
When the day nurse, rosy and refreshed, came to relieve her, she said, eying the night nurse a little curiously:
“I guess you’d better tumble into bed as soon as you can, Miss Evans. You look as if your month’s work had about finished you.”