The nurse whose turn came next was the one who had been with Mrs. Prince. The last night of her watch was the twenty-seventh of February. She had had an unusually hard month’s work, and was exceedingly tired and not a little cross when, at midnight, a bell rang which she could not locate.
“Some plaguey wire out of gear again,” she said, provoked, after a second, fruitless search for the elusive tinkle. She had turned at the end of the corridor, and stood just by the Prince Ward. The bell rang sharply.
“Well, I want to know!” she said aloud. “If it isn’t in this ward!”
She went in immediately and would have turned on the light, when she was stopped by a curiously familiar, though indistinct, voice.
“Water—water!”
“For the land’s sake,” ejaculated the Down-Easter, going toward the bed. “What’s this?”
Her foot slipped on something; she tripped and came near falling. She stooped and lifted from the floor a long, heavy plait of black hair. She stood stupidly, holding it in her hands, staring down at the bed.
“If I was you,” she said mechanically, “I’d have about half of this cut off.”
Two large dark eyes stared up at her.