Amherst had remembered the nurse’s cry of recognition when she saw Mrs. Westmore’s face under the street-lamp; and it immediately occurred to him that, if the two women had really known each other, Mrs. Westmore would have no difficulty in obtaining the information she wanted; while, even if they met as strangers, the dark-eyed girl’s perspicacity might still be trusted to come to their aid. It remained only to be seen how Mrs. Westmore would take his suggestion; but some instinct was already telling him that the highhanded method was the one she really preferred.
“To the hospital—now? I should like it of all things,” she exclaimed, rising with what seemed an almost childish zest in the adventure. “Of course that is the best way of finding out. I ought to have insisted on seeing Dillon yesterday—but I begin to think the matron didn’t want me to.”
Amherst left this inference to work itself out in her mind, contenting himself, as they drove back to Hanaford, with answering her questions about Dillon’s family, the ages of his children, and his wife’s health. Her enquiries, he noticed, did not extend from the particular to the general: her curiosity, as yet, was too purely personal and emotional to lead to any larger consideration of the question. But this larger view might grow out of the investigation of Dillon’s case; and meanwhile Amherst’s own purposes were momentarily lost in the sweet confusion of feeling her near him—of seeing the exquisite grain of her skin, the way her lashes grew out of a dusky line on the edge of the white lids, the way her hair, stealing in spirals of light from brow to ear, wavered off into a fruity down on the edge of the cheek.
At the hospital they were protestingly admitted by Mrs. Ogan, though the official “visitors’ hour” was not till the afternoon; and beside the sufferer’s bed, Amherst saw again that sudden flowering of compassion which seemed the key to his companion’s beauty: as though her lips had been formed for consolation and her hands for tender offices. It was clear enough that Dillon, still sunk in a torpor broken by feverish tossings, was making no perceptible progress toward recovery; and Mrs. Ogan was reduced to murmuring some technical explanation about the state of the wound while Bessy hung above him with reassuring murmurs as to his wife’s fate, and promises that the children should be cared for.
Amherst had noticed, on entering, that a new nurse—a gaping young woman instantly lost in the study of Mrs. Westmore’s toilet—had replaced the dark-eyed attendant of the day before; and supposing that the latter was temporarily off duty, he asked Mrs. Ogan if she might be seen.
The matron’s face was a picture of genteel perplexity. “The other nurse? Our regular surgical nurse, Miss Golden, is ill—Miss Hibbs, here, is replacing her for the present.” She indicated the gaping damsel; then, as Amherst persisted: “Ah,” she wondered negligently, “do you mean the young lady you saw here yesterday? Certainly—I had forgotten: Miss Brent was merely a—er—temporary substitute. I believe she was recommended to Dr. Disbrow by one of his patients; but we found her quite unsuitable—in fact, unfitted—and the doctor discharged her this morning.”
Mrs. Westmore had drawn near, and while the matron delivered her explanation, with an uneasy sorting and shifting of words, a quick signal of intelligence passed between her hearers. “You see?” Amherst’s eyes exclaimed; “I see—they have sent her away because she told you,” Bessy’s flashed back in wrath, and his answering look did not deny her inference.
“Do you know where she has gone?” Amherst enquired; but Mrs. Ogan, permitting her brows a faint lift of surprise, replied that she had no idea of Miss Brent’s movements, beyond having heard that she was to leave Hanaford immediately
In the carriage Bessy exclaimed: “It was the nurse, of course—if we could only find her! Brent—did Mrs. Ogan say her name was Brent?”
“Do you know the name?”
“Yes—at least—but it couldn’t, of course, be the girl I knew–-“
“Miss Brent saw you the night you arrived, and thought she recognized you. She said you and she had been at some school or convent together.”
“The Sacred Heart? Then it is Justine Brent! I heard they had lost their money—I haven’t seen her for years. But how strange that she should be a hospital nurse! And why is she at Hanaford, I wonder?”
“She was here only on a visit; she didn’t tell me where she lived. She said she heard that a surgical nurse was wanted at the hospital, and volunteered her services; I’m afraid she got small thanks for them.”
“Do you really think they sent her away for talking to you? How do you suppose they found out?”
“I waited for her last night when she left the hospital, and I suppose Mrs. Ogan or one of the doctors saw us. It was thoughtless of me,” Amherst exclaimed with compunction.
“I wish I had seen her—poor Justine! We were the greatest friends at the convent. She was the ringleader in all our mischief—I never saw any one so quick and clever. I suppose her fun is all gone now.”
For a moment Mrs. Westmore’s mind continued to linger among her memories; then she reverted to the question of the Dillons, and of what might best be done for them if Miss Brent’s fears should be realized.
As the carriage neared her door she turned to her companion with extended hand. “Thank you so much, Mr. Amherst. I am glad you suggested that Mr. Truscomb should find some work for Dillon about the office. But I must talk to you about this again—can you come in this evening?”
