“It’s cruel hard on ye,” said she; “but don’t mind so, don’t mind so. An’ me worrying you and all. I’ll bite out me tongue before I say another hasty word to ye.” Then came two or three very bad cases. One was a frail, tired-looking woman, who glanced at Jeannie wistfully as she examined the thermometer. “I’m no better?” she asked. Jeannie smiled, but with a heavy heart. The woman, she felt sure, could not last through very many days of this. “How do you feel?” she said. “Weak and tired--oh, so tired! And I have a pain in my back.” “Do you cough at all?” asked Jeannie. “I couldn’t sleep for it last night,” said the woman, “and that makes a body weary.” “Keep yourself warm, then,” she said, “and lie still.” “But I’m no better?” she asked again. “That was one of the questions which we settled not to ask,” said Jeannie. “When you are quite well you will get up. Till then, nothing, nothing.” Half an hour more sufficed to finish the round, and she went into the next ward to watch the man who was so restless. For nearly an hour she had to sit close by his bedside, with her hands continually pressing on his shoulders to prevent his getting up. He was more than half unconscious and wandering in his talk, saying things now and then which ten days ago would have made Jeannie turn from him in horror and disgust. But now she had nothing of that left, only pure pity and the one great end in view to let none of these poor people die. Then when Nurse James had finished her round she came back to her, and by then it was time to get the patients’ food. Some of the more advanced and progressing cases were already allowed Mellin’s Food, but for the most it was still only milk and beef-tea. At mid-day she had a couple of hours’ interval, usually returned home to lunch, and went afterward for a walk. But to-day she felt too fagged and too sick at heart to do more than sit in the garden and beneath the pitiless leaden cowl of the sky. The effort of appearing cheerful and remaining cheering was too great, and when alone she abandoned herself to a sort of resigned hopelessness. Just before leaving the ward she had seen the terrible screen put up round the bed of the girl who was dying. That was all the privacy that could be given her. She almost hoped that when she got back the end would have come; only two days before she had sat in the still and awe-struck ward while a woman passed through her last hours. She had heard the wandering, inarticulate cries; she had counted her breaths through the long, pitiless silences; she had shut her teeth hard to bear, without screaming audibly, that one last exclamation in which the spirit clutches with unavailing hands not to be torn away from the inert body, the one last convulsive breath in which the body tries to retain it, and she thought she could hardly bear it again. Then she cudgelled and contemned herself for her paltry, selfish cowardice. Was there ever, she thought, a girl so puny-spirited?