She administered a draught, straightened the pillow, then bent down impulsively and kissed the lovely, disquieted face maternally. Two beautiful arms closed about her ample neck, and the patient was sobbing on her generous bosom.
“Come, come, you must be brave. They did not want me to tell you, but a telegram came half an hour since for you. Your husband will be here sometime toward morning. Will you go to sleep now, like a good child? Ah! I thought so.”
She turned off the light and went out, leaving the door half open. After making the round of the corridor she dropped into a chair. Her head fell forward on the table before her. In all her experience as a nurse she had never done such a thing before,—she fell asleep at her post.
She was roused by the sharp, continued ringing of a bell. She sat up, dazed, rubbing her eyes.
The superintendent, the resident physician, and a stranger were coming up the wide staircase. The bell had never ceased its imperious, insistent summons.
Without stopping to think, the head nurse ran, ponderously but swiftly, to the Prince Ward. As she stepped within the threshold the bell suddenly ceased, but the air was vibrating. She ran to the mantelpiece, reached up, and turned on the light.
The three men were at the door, the fur-clad stranger, a tall and handsome apparition, carrying a huge handful of roses. They all stared at the figure of the head nurse.
Petrified in position, her fingers on the key of the electric bulb, she stood with her usually florid face, now paper white, turned over her shoulder, her starting eyes fixed upon the bed.
Mr. Prince entered quickly, then drew back with a loud cry of fear and horror. The roses fell from his hands upon the edge of the bed and over the floor.
The heavy picture had dropped like a stone from its anchor in the cornice. Its edge had struck the sick woman on breast and forehead, but it had fallen painting upward. From beneath it uncoiled on either side two immensely long, ropelike plaits of black hair, between which the painted face smiled upon the white faces by the bedside.