At the office he found that a package had come for him in the mail, and a letter. Both had been opened by the authorities. He read the letter first. It was from Helen. She had heard that cigarettes were a great solace to men in his situation, and so she had sent him a large carton of them. She expressed the hope that everything was going well, and she filled the rest of her letter with gossip of the Hilmers. Mrs. Hilmer was a little better and she was wheeling her out on fine days just in front of the house. The nurse had gone and she was doing everything. But these people had been so good to her! What else was there left to do? She ended with a restrained dignity. She offered neither sympathy nor reproaches. Fred had to concede that it was a master stroke of implied martyrdom. He flung the letter into the nearest wastebasket. He had an impulse to do the same thing with the cigarettes, but the thought of Monet's pleasure in them restrained him. He took the package to the dormitory. Monet had gone up before him. Fred threw his burden on Monet's bed. The youth gave a low whistle of delight. "Pall Malls!" he cried, incredulously. "Where did you get them?" "They came from my wife." "Oh! ... Don't you want any of them?" "No." At the smoking hour Fred saw Monet take out his pitiful little bag of cheap tobacco and roll the usual cigarette. "What? ... Aren't you smoking Pall Malls?" he asked, with a shade of banter in his voice. Monet shook his head. "I don't want them, either... What shall we do? Give them to the others?" Fred stared through a sudden mist. "Why--yes. Just whatever you like." That night, when everyone else was asleep, Fred Starratt told Felix Monet his story... CHAPTER XIV One morning, at the beginning of the second week of Fred Starratt's stay at Fairview, as he and Monet were swinging back to lunch after a brisk walk, they received orders to fall in line with the inmates of Ward 6. "Things will be better now," Monet said, with his usual air of quiet reassurance. And so it proved. Fred's first introduction was to the dining room. It was not an extraordinary place, and yet Fred gave a little gasp as he entered it and stood staring almost foolishly at the tables set with clean linen. Three of its sides were made up almost entirely of windows, before which the shades were drawn to shut out the hot noonday sun, and its floor of polished hardwood glistened even in the subdued light. They sat down in the first seats that came to hand, and it was not until some cold meat was passed that Fred discovered a knife and fork at his place. The meat was neither choice nor dainty, but somehow just the fact of this knife and fork gave it extraordinary zest. Later on, small pats of butter were circulated and a spoonful of sugar apiece for the tea. And once again he listened to people talk while they ate ... heard a subdued, but sane, laugh or two... There was a smoking room also, not overlarge, but adequate.