Surgical duties performed, she sat beside Mrs. Sutton with her wasted hand in hers, listening to her laboured breathing and turning over a possibility in her mind.
"We'll try it!" she said suddenly out loud. And then, smiling at the woman's surprised expression, she went on. "What do you say to our getting a breath of fresh air together? Shall we have a drive?"
"Oh, Sister! Not really? Could I?"
Sister Warwick certainly had a way of sweeping aside difficulties when her mind was set to an end. She went to the nearest cab-stand, picked out the driver with care, and came back with the hansom to the entrance of the court. It could go no further.
A boy was found to hold the horse, and together she and cabby carried Mrs. Sutton down the old stairs. She was comfortably wedged into the corner of the seat with pillows, and a footstool was found for her feet. Then Sister gave the man her instructions—
"It is to be a shilling drive, please, and take us to see a bit of something green."
"Right you are, Nuss! Embankment's the place for we!"
Away they went—the air cool in their faces—until the sick woman began to draw long breaths of enjoyment, and even a little colour crept into her pale cheeks. Under the trees, with the glittering water on one side and patches of green grass within railings on the other. There was a laburnum in blossom. Some of the windows of the houses were bright with scarlet geraniums and marguerites. A donkey-cart came towards them laden with ferns and plants in bloom.
Mrs. Sutton's eyes feasted on it all. A few happy tears rolled down her cheeks. She had not hoped or thought to see these things until she rested in "the Park of God." And the sky was so blue! Heaven would be clearer to her imagination after this.
But Sister Warwick began to wonder when their driver meant to turn homewards. It was a very long shilling's-worth already, and she had not wanted to spend more out of her slender purse. At last she pushed up the little trap-door.