"Rose," cut in the doctor, sternly, although his eyes held a pleased twinkle, "you're apparently forgetting one thing--that I'm boss here for the present, and that my nurses must learn to do as they are told, without arguing. I'm sorry for Miss Merriman, too; but she knows just what to do if anything happens, and you don't--yet. Besides, it won't be the first time that she has stayed up twenty-four hours at a stretch, will it?" "No, indeed--nor forty-eight," answered the nurse, as she smoothed the pillow under the little patient's head. "I shall want you fresh and strong to help me with the 'day shift,' Smiles dear. And, as the doctor says, orders are orders." The girl's tired eyes suddenly filled again, this time, with hurt, rebellious tears, and a pout, almost like a child's, appeared on her lips as she turned and moved slowly toward the ladder in the far corner. Donald watched her with sympathetic understanding and the thought, "She must think me a brute"; but, before he could speak the word of consolation which was on his tongue, she whirled about, just as she had when sent to bed on the first night of their acquaintance, and running back, threw herself into his arms. As she clung to him passionately, sobbing without restraint from weariness and the break in the tension which had kept her up for so long, she whispered, "Oh, I love you so, dear Don. You have been so good, so good to me, and I'm so very happy." "Well, well," answered the man huskily, as he patted her shoulder, "you certainly have a funny way of showing it; but, after all, women are queer creatures. I'm happy, too, dear--happy to be here and to have been able to help you. And now," he concluded, lightly, "my happiness will be complete if you will just let me see that sunny smile on your face, as you obey that order which I have had to give you three times already." The tired girl, for the moment more child than woman, leaned back in his arms and looked up at him with an expression so transcendently appealing that it was only by the exercise of all his moral force that he was able to restrain the impulse to crush her to him. He saw that the nurse was regarding him with a peculiar expression, and as she, in turn, caught his eye and turned hastily away with a little added color in her cheeks, Donald recovered himself, lightly kissed the forehead so close to his lips, and said, "Now for the fourth, and last, time, '_go to bed_.' Good-night, little sister." This time Rose actually departed, and, after the physician had given Miss Merriman a few final directions, and bidden her call him instantly, if anything appeared to be going wrong, he said good-night to her also, and stepped toward the little room which he was to occupy. On reaching it he paused, for there had come a low, uncertain knock on the cabin door.