They went upstairs to the first story; Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann in front, conducted by Doctor Sammet, then Countess Löwenjoul with Herr von Braunbart, and the young surgeons in the rear. Yes, the older children were here, up to fourteen years of age. An ante-room with wash-basins divided the girls' and the boys' rooms. In white bedsteads, with a name-plate at the head and a frame at the foot enclosing the temperature- and weight-charts--tended by nurses in white caps, and surrounded by cleanliness and tidiness--lay the sick children, and coughs filled the room while Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked down between the rows. He walked at her left hand, out of courtesy, with the same smile as when he visited exhibitions or inspected veterans, gymnastic associations, or guards of honour. But every time he turned his head to the right he found that Imma Spoelmann was watching him--he met her great black eyes, which were directed at him in a searching, questioning way. It was so peculiar, he never remembered experiencing anything so peculiar before, her way of looking at him with her great eyes, without any respect for him or anyone else, absolutely unembarrassed and free, quite unconcerned whether anybody noticed it or not. When Doctor Sammet stopped at a bed to describe the case--the little girl's, for instance, whose broken white-bandaged leg stuck straight out along the bed--Miss Spoelmann listened attentively to him, that was quite clear; but while she listened she did not look at the speaker, but her eyes rested in turn on Klaus Heinrich and the pinched, quiet child who, her hands folded on her breast, gazed up at them from her back-rest--rested in turn on the Prince and the little victim, the history of whose case she shared with the Prince, as if she were watching Klaus Heinrich's sympathy, or were trying to read in his face the effect of Dr. Sammet's words; or maybe for some other reason. Yes, this was especially noticeable in the case of the boy with the bullet through his arm and the boy who had been picked out of the water--two sad cases, as Dr. Sammet remarked. "A severed artery, sister," he said, and showed them the double wound in the boy's upper arm, the entry and exit of the revolver bullet. "The wound," said Doctor Sammet in an undertone to his guests, turning his back to the bed, "the wound was caused by his own father. This one was the lucky one. The man shot his wife, three of his children, and himself with a revolver. He made a bad shot at this boy."