"And I say he'd no right to go. My life's as much consequence as anybody else's life, and it's a shameful piece of neglect. Oh, if I do live to get away from this 'ateful place, I'll let some of you know. I'm to be left to die because the doctors are too idle to come and see me. If I'd only known, you'd never caught me here." "Hush, hush! Pray be quiet, dear. You are making yourself hot and feverish." The nurse laid her cool white hand upon the patient's brow, but she resented it and thrust it away. "Let me be. I don't want holding down. It's shameful. It's cruel. Oh, why did I come to this dreadful place? As for that Sir Denton, or whatever his name is--" "What about him? Do you want me?" said the gentleman in question, who had come into the ward and up to the bed unnoticed. "How are you this morning?--Ah, better." "No, I'm not, I'm worse, and it's shameful." "What is?" said the surgeon, smiling. "For me to be neglected by the doctors and nurses as I am. It's too bad, it is; and I might have died--no doctor, no nurse." "Ah, yes; it is very cruel," said Sir Denton. "I have shamefully neglected my patients here, and as for the conduct of Nurse Elisia to you, it is almost criminal. You will have to go back home to your own people and be properly treated. Dreadful places, these hospitals are." Nurse Elisia looked up at the old surgeon with wondering eyes, as he took the woman's own tone, but he smiled at her sadly. "Come with me, I want to talk to you. Poor thing," he said, as they walked away, "she is in the irritable, weary state of the convalescent. She is not answerable for what she says. Sorry I was obliged to go, but the case was urgent. Mr Elthorne's father. A terrible accident. The spine injured, and paralysis of the lower part of the body." "Mr Elthorne's father!" cried the nurse, turning pale. "How shocking!" "Terrible. Mr Elthorne telegraphed for me. It was not necessary, for he was doing everything possible, and now it is a case of careful nursing to save the poor fellow's life." "Nursing?" "Yes. I have promised Mr Elthorne to send him down the most helpful, trustworthy nurse I knew, at once." "Sir Denton," faltered the nurse, with a faint colour rising in her cheeks. "It is an exceptional ease, my child, one which calls for all a nurse's skill and tenderness with, perhaps, as much patience as I have seen you exercise toward that foolish woman. I am going to ask you to start at once for Hightoft, and take up this case." "Sir Denton!" she cried. "Oh! it is impossible." "Why?" "My patients here." "Your place can be filled, just as it would be necessary to fill it if you were taken ill." "But I am not ill, Sir Denton, and I am needed here." "But you are needed there--at this gentleman's house, where the services of a patient lady like yourself would be invaluable." "I could not go, Sir Denton; I beg you will not send me."