“How is she this morning?” was the doctor’s first question, asked without even raising his eyes from the prescription he was writing. “Worse, Dr. Brookes,” said “Big Belle” in a lady-like voice. “I should say that the vitriol was still burning deeper, and if I am not much mistaken there is a considerable fever.” “I’ll have to get you a thermometer,” said Dr. Brookes, without thinking; “you can certainly take temperature, Belle, they tell me you are clever.” A half-suppressed laugh from the woman startled him. He looked up and caught her eye, and then he, too, smiled slightly. “I keep forgetting that you people aren’t to be trusted,” he said, pleasantly. “When will I ever learn that I am working in a prison!” The woman did not answer, but she followed him with her eyes as he moved away. She was by far too clever not to understand his words, and by far too unhappy not to be secretly pleased by them. “He’d trust me all right, if he dared,” she thought. “As if there was any danger of my killing myself, or any one else for that matter!” “May I come in a minute?” asked a pleasant voice at the door. Dr. Brookes looked around quickly, and a smile spread over his features. His visitor was Marion Marlowe, in her nurse’s dress and bare-headed, except for the light shawl, which she was just slipping to her shoulders. “Come right in,” said the young man, as he went quickly forward, then stopped suddenly at the thought of his professional dignity. “Oh, Miss Marlowe, what ward do you come from, please? I am almost afraid to make you welcome.” “Don’t fear,” said Marion, smilingly, as she stepped into the ward. “Since I came back from the city, I have only been helping in the linen room. They have been kind enough to keep me off the wards until I grew a little stronger.” “Big Belle” was just passing on her way to the vitriol patient and Marion watched her movements with a look of wonder. “The cleverest ‘confidence woman’ in the world,” whispered the doctor. “She counts the victims she has fleeced by the score, yet see how gentle she is with my patients.” “What is the matter with her?” asked Marion, nodding toward the patient with the bandaged face. “Why, she was in some drunken fight with another woman. I believe it was over some man, and as they left Jefferson Market Court her rival fairly deluged her with vitriol. She only came up from the city yesterday—sent up as a ‘drunk and disorderly’ for ten days only, but she’ll never go back. She is slowly dying.” “Poor thing!” sighed Marion, with tears in her eyes. “But her fate is the same as dozens that I have seen already. Oh, this awful island! This awful island!” She was moving toward the patient when Dr. Brookes stopped her. “No, Marion!” he said, firmly; “you must not go any nearer. Erysipelas has set in and you know you are still in a weak condition. If you should catch any infection in my wards, I would never forgive myself—so forgive me, please, for being inhospitable!”